Billy Horschel managed to produce a moment of brilliance on the second play-off hole to beat Rory McIlroy and win the BMW PGA Championship for the second time on Sunday.
The BMW PGA Championship certainly delivered, with a fantastic finish at Wentworth. Fans were treated to a play-off initially involving Billy Horschel, Rory McIlroy and Thirston Lawrence. Lawrence was knocked out after his opponents both made birdie on the 18th hole.
Horschel would then go on and secure victory after rolling his eagle putt in the second time around, with McIlroy seeing his attempt for a three sliding agonisingly by. The 37-year-old clinched victory at the Surrey course for a second time in his career.
Obviously, it felt that significant that McIlroy came so close again, with the four-time major champion also missing out on the Irish Open title last week. There was a moment when it appeared that it may just be written for McIlroy to go one better at the DP World Tour’s flagship event.
Billy Horschel reveals what he thought when Rory McIlroy had an eagle putt on 17
The Northern Irishman found the front third of the 17th green in two, leaving him just shy of 50 feet for eagle which would have put level with Lawrence at the top of the leaderboard.
Of course, a putt of that distance is difficult enough, but the greens had also taken their fair share of punishment over the course of the day due to the poor weather earlier on. So it seemed remarkable when McIlroy rolled the putt in to move to 20 under par.
One person however, who seemingly saw it coming was Horschel himself, with the champion explaining that he had a feeling as McIlroy stood over the putt.
“I was expecting him to make that. I said it to him right after he made it. I said, ‘I had a feeling you were going to make yours’,” he said.
“Because he had played some really good golf the last two days, but he had not had that really big moment that we know Rory can have at any given time. And when he made that, I was like, well, there it is.
“You know, and I’m like, I’ve got to birdie mine and I’ve got do something special on 18 to hopefully get into a playoff with him and possibly Thriston Lawrence. Luckily enough, neither one of those guys birdied 18.
“Like I said, when that putt went in, I was not shocked because I felt like he hit a lot of quality putts over the last two days and had just been burning edges, coming up just short. So I was not shocked to see that one go in.”
No stone was left unturned
McIlroy may have a handful of shots that he would love to have back over the course of the week, but he will be able to look back at his performance down the stretch and feel that he could have hardly done more.
While the Irish Open proved to be a disappointing conclusion due to the mistakes he made on 15 and 17, McIlroy can look at the eagle he made on the 71st hole of the week, as well as the two birdies in the play-off, and be very content with his performance.
McIlroy is working through some swing changes right now, so it does appear that his game is a work in progress as some of his thoughts turn towards 2025.
But it would also be little surprise if the Dunhill Links at the start of October provided McIlroy with the stage to clear that hurdle which has proved to be beyond him in his last two starts.
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