Winner: Billy Horschel
Around the wider world of golf: David Toms won the Ascension Charity Classic on the Champions Tour; Raoul Menard won the Elk Ridge Open on the Mackenzie Tour; Atthaya Thitikul won the VP Bank Swiss Ladies on the LET; Ha Na Jang won the KB Financial Group Star Championship on the KLPGA; Mone Inami won the JLPGA Konica Minolta Cup; and Yeosub Seo won the Shinhae Donghae Open on the KPGA. [Thanks, IC!]
Since the PGA Tour wasn't in action this week I didn't make any Twofer Tuesday picks. As a result, I didn't make any poor choices. Hurray!
But with the PGA Tour being off this week, I was able to pick whichever active tour I wanted for the Limerick Summary... and the BMW PGA was a no-brainer. As a result I get to cover history.
It's been no secret over the years that I consider the BMW PGA the ET's equivalent of THE PLAYERS -- in fact, I restated that fact this past Wednesday -- and Billy Horschel agrees with me. (He said so several times this week during the broadcasts.) And since he's eligible to play the event, he does, and in the process he became the first American to win a Rolex Series event as well as only the second American to win this event. Arnold Palmer did it way back in 1975.
Not only did he have the personal desire to win this event -- four years ago he tweeted this:
Watching @BMWPGA this morning. Watched this event on tv since I was 13. Need to try and make it over to U.K. and play this great event!
but he also had a personal reason that urged him on. As golfchannel.com put it:
Billy Horschel felt aggrieved this week at the manner in which he missed out on a place in the U.S. team for the Ryder Cup. So, he took down a bunch of leading Europeans by himself.Billy, of course, won the WGC-Dell Match Play earlier this season and now has gotten big wins twice after not getting picked for the Ryder Cup. (The other was back in 2014 when Billy won two events and the FedExCup after he got passed over.)
It's possible Billy might get called in for action if Brooks Koepka can't play next week. But whether that happens or not, at least Billy can bask in the glory of another Limerick Summary!
The Ryder Cup team passed him by
But that snub cannot nullify
What Billy just did.
The Last Minute Kid
Came up big again. No surprise!
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