American Billy Horschel has bluntly declared the setting up of a task force to investigate the last Ryder Cup and to also appoint a replacement USA Team captain as ‘a lot of political BS’.
Despite capturing the closing two events of the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup Play-Off Series Horschel missed out on a maiden USA Ryder Cup team cap given the qualifying process had ended weeks earlier at the PGA Championship.
The Texan also missed out on being named by Tom Watson as a Gleneagles ‘wildcard pick’.
However the fall out from Phi Mickelson’s controversial post Ryder Cup comments continue to reverberate across the US and with Horschel on the eve of this week’s Greg Norman hosted $3.1m Franklin Templeton Shootout in Naples, Florida the latest to voice his sentiments.
Unlike many before him Horschel surprisingly pulled no punches
“I think the Ryder Cup task force is a lot of political BS,” said Horschel who will partner Ian Poulter in this weeks three-day $3.1m event.
American Billy Horschel scoops up the FedEx Cup and Tour Championship trophy but says the setting up of a Ryder Cup task force is ‘political BS!’ (Photo – kenneth e. dennis/kendennisphoto.com)
“I just don’t understand that. We understand they we haven’t played well and the Europeans over the last 10 years have played better than us when it comes time to step up.
“Maybe there’s some logistical stuff that could be done a little bit differently.
“I’ve been a couch potato watching the Ryder Cup for 10 years and while I haven’t been on a Ryder Cup team or a Presidents Cup team, so I couldn’t tell yo what the ins and outs are of everyday practice sessions and what you have to do at night and everything.
“But just sitting on the couch, and from my experience of sitting on the couch, it looked like when Davis Love was captain at Medinah in 2012, it looked like the team was enjoying themselves.
“Well enjoying themselves to Sunday and we got outplayed on Sunday, but before then the Americans looked more like the Europeans.
“But to me they are only putting a task force together for that, so that little things can be done differently to help us play better.
And Horschel had a choice of candidates to replace the hapless Tom Watson.
“If they’re putting a task force together to figure out who the next captain should be, that’s pretty easy,” he said.
“Fred Couples should be captain. They should have named him the day after the Ryder Cup was over.”
