Horschel’s surge too late for Ryder Cup pick

HE’S already been criticised for not including Chris Kirk in his three wildcard selections for Gleneagles. Now watch out for Tom Watson receiving an ear-bashing for Billy Horschel not being on his Ryder Cup team, either.

Billy Horschel won the Tour Championship at East Lake. Picture: Getty

By the same reckoning we should probably be asking why newly-crowned KLM Open champion Paul Casey isn’t in the European team that, a week today, will be out on the PGA Centenary Course playing a first practice round.

Having all recorded wins in the past fortnight – two in the case of Horschel – the trio are unquestionably players on form, something that both Watson and Paul McGinley wanted to see from potential team members.

At the same time, though, they all knew the cut-off points for both teams being decided, either through automatic qualification or selection, so it’s hardly Watson’s fault that, in Horschel’s instance in particular, his surge came too late.

Horschel started the FedEx Cup Play-Offs ranked 64th then dropped to 82nd after missing the cut in the opening event, The Barclays. It was only after the wildcards were handed out that he won the final two events to become a hefty £8.3 million richer.

Perhaps the PGA of America needs to look at the dates when future captains make their picks, but, in any case, Horschel probably would have been unavailable for the Ryder Cup due to the fact his wife is about to give birth.

Impressive as though both Horschel and Kirk have been over the past three weeks, Watson will still feel confident about having picked Keegan Bradley, Webb Simpson and Hunter Mahan. Rightly so, too, when two of them are major winners and the other has a WGC title to his name.

Make no mistake, even without two hot players, the Americans are coming here next week with a strong side and McGinley and his team know that.