Weekly Recap: A Home Run for Horschel

Billy Horschel has been a good-but-not-great player for almost a decade now. He's been very consistent, situated somewhere in the 30s or 40s in the world rankings for the past two and a half years. He reached a career-high No. 12 in 2014 after his otherworldly run through the FedEx Cup playoffs.

He's never made a Ryder Cup team nor a Presidents Cup team. His back-to-back playoff wins in 2014 came too late, with the TOUR Championship ending a mere 12 days before Ryder Cuppers gathered at Gleneagles in what turned out to be a a 16.5-11.5 blowout by the European squad. The teams had already been chosen.

Every year around this time, the WGC-Match Play becomes sort of a referendum on the Ryder Cup, at least from a U.S. team standpoint.

Well, Horschel certainly stated his case Sunday, knocking off Scottie Scheffler at Austin Country Club for the biggest regular-season win of his career. Another American, Matt Kuchar, finished third after beating Frenchman Victor Perez in the consolation match.

With the win and a recent runner-up at the WGC-Workday Championship at The Concession, Horschel has shot up the OWGR ranks and now sits at No. 17 in the world. It's his best stretch of golf since 2014. He didn't have the hardest path through the Match Play event, facing only one top-20 player, and that was No. 4 Collin Morikawa, a Match Play rookie with a penchant for dicey putting.

So, it doesn't appear this would significantly alter U.S. Ryder Cup team captain Steve Stricker's plans in regards to Horschel, especially since he had never reached the Round of 16 before.

But what about Scheffler, who took down not only European match-play icon Ian Poulter but also world No. 3 Jon Rahm? And what about Kuchar, who won the Match Play in 2013, finished second in 2019 and this year advanced out of the "Group of Death" -- one that included Justin Thomas, Kevin Kisner and Louis Oosthuizen -- before ousting Jordan Spieth?

These are valid questions, because there's a groundswell out there for Kisner -- or at least there was before Friday -- because he finished runner-up in 2018 and won in 2019 while doing not all that much else year-round. He easily dispatched Thomas and Oosthuizen before Kuchar exacted revenge for 2019.

It seems that Match Play week, even a series of excellent Match Play weeks, is not enough to guarantee a golfer a Ryder Cup spot. "Individual" match play and team match play are very different, especially since most Cup matches are 2-on-2.

It's still close to six months before the Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits, where Stricker will get an unprecedented six captain's picks out of the 12 spots. Right now, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Thomas, Brooks Koepka, Morikawa and Xander Schauffele are on the team as the top six in the Ryder Cup point standings. Koepka is injured. As shocking as this sounds, with all kinds of options available, Schauffele might need to finish top-6 to secure a spot . Patrick Reed is lurking at No. 7 and will make the team one way or another. No. 8 Tony Finau was pretty darn good in Paris in 2018. Patrick Cantlay is 12th but seems like a lock. Ditto Spieth, at No. 22, if he continues on his current path.

Horschel is No. 11, Scheffler is 14th, Kisner is 18th and Kuchar is 23rd.

Considering all the usual factors, Horschel may be in the worst position among those 14 guys.

And don't count out Webb Simpson, Daniel Berger or Matthew Wolff, plus whoever else you want to consider -- Will Zalatoris? -- though going any further down the list seems unlikely.

What would it take for Horschel to get picked? A strong showing at the Masters -- where he only has only one top-20 in six visits -- would certainly go a long way.

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Top Seeds
Of the 16 top seeds in play, only one -- ONE -- made it out of round-robin play. That was Rahm. And then he promptly lost in the Round of 16 to Scheffler. We really can't read too much into this, and that's hardly an indicator the other 15 are not playing well heading into the Masters. It's been said many times that No. 64 in golf can and will beat the No. 1 player on occasion, probably more than 10 times across 100 matches, unlike in tennis, where No. 64 might be 0-100 against Novak Djokovic. That's not to say all the top golfers have their A games on the eve of Augusta. No. 1-ranked Johnson has been in a mini-slump, and perhaps that's why he was a late entry into this week's Valero Texas Open. Schauffele and Rory McIlroy are two others not at their best of late. None of this rises to the level of: Avoid them at all cost at Augusta. This past week, it was just a case of the capricious nature of match play.

Scottie Scheffler
Scheffler certainly opened some eyes this week, not only among golf fans but surely also those of Stricker and Padraig Harrington, the two Ryder Cup captains. Beating Poulter, Rahm and Kuchar in consecutive knockout rounds was very impressive, but then he clearly tired against Horschel. Scheffler is perhaps the straightest of the longest drivers, but you need a lot more to win at match play. The Texan had some advantages playing at a very familiar golf course in front of fans rooting for him, but he also showed the tenacity required to compete against the Europeans come September.

Matt Kuchar
It's hard to believe the guy with the Howdy Doody smile can be such a dogged competitor. Kuchar won the Group of Death against Thomas, Kisner and Oosthuizen, then eliminated Spieth and fiery Brian Harman before falling to Scheffler in the semifinals. He then beat Perez in the consolation match. Kuchar won the Match Play back in 2013 and was runner-up to Kisner in 2019. So where does this leave Kuchar, who had fallen pretty hard over the past year, outside the top-50 OWGR? It has to give him confidence, but we wouldn't recommend jumping on board full throttle just yet. The match play is a different animal and success there does not forecast stroke-play quality. Nonetheless, Kuchar is back inside the top-50 at No. 43 and has great success at the Masters through the years.

Victor Perez
It's hard to imagine a player ranked 33rd in the world being less familiar to U.S.-based golf fans than Perez was before this tournament. The 28-year-old Frenchman was never in a major before last year and hadn't even made a start in the United States before 2020's canceled PLAYERS Championship. He struggled in his few tournaments after the restart, then had a top-25 at the PGA last summer before a top-10 earlier this month at the PLAYERS. And now he finished fourth at the Match Play, falling just short of special temporary membership.

Brian Harman
Harman needed a very good week to qualify for the Masters at almost the last possible moment – and he got it. He was nearly 100th in the world in January, then used a T8 at the Amex but especially a T3 at the PLAYERS and now this quarterfinal loss to vault inside the top-50. Don't expect a great Masters from someone who's played Augusta only twice with an MC and a T44, but Harman surely has been an improved player in 2021.

Sergio Garcia
Garcia showed that, at age 41, he still is a world-class ball-striker. He emerged from his all-Euro group thanks to that amazing walk-off ace in his playoff with Lee Westwood. He then beat Mackenzie Hughes before falling to Perez in the quarterfinals. Garcia has missed both cuts since his 2017 Masters win, and he didn't play Augusta last year after testing positive right before the tournament. His major record has been pretty putrid since that Masters win, but that's more in his head than in his stroke.

Tommy Fleetwood
Fleetwood is in the top-25 in the world. But he had not been playing well in PGA Tour events for the better part of a year. There were some pockets of success, such as top-20 at the Masters in November. Recently, he had a top-10 at Bay Hill and a missed cut at the PLAYERS but now added a quarterfinal at the Match Play, where he lost to Horschel. This past week isn't enough for us to jump back on board the Fleetwood bandwagon (we've never really been on it), but he has to start somewhere. He does have two top-20s at Augusta, which is pretty impressive for such a poor putter.

Jordan Spieth
This was a tournament that was right in Spieth's wheelhouse, where the One Big Miss that has plagued him the past few years would cost him only one hole and not perhaps an entire tournament. It worked to the point that he was able to advance out of a pretty tough group featuring Wolff, Matthew Fitzpatrick and Corey Conners. But then he ran into Kuchar and was bounced in the round of 16. Spieth will play the Valero Texas Open this week, a final tuneup before another tournament that is also in his wheelhouse: the Masters.

Ian Poulter
Poulter of course has made a career of his Ryder Cup brilliance. But his match-play success has not completely transferred to the Match Play tournament. While Poulter won it in 2010, he had been pretty ordinary with a 10-9 match record since then coming into this year's event. Poulter was in a brutal bracket with McIlroy and Cameron Smith (and Lanto Griffin) but advanced until being taken out by Scheffler. The week not only bodes well for Poulter making another Ryder Cup team later this year but for the upcoming Masters, where he has played well through the years, with nine top-25s, three top-10s and only one missed cut in 15 starts.

Robert MacIntyre
The 24-year-old Scot impressively won his group over Johnson and a pretty good match-play player in Kevin Na. While that's where MacIntyre's tournament ended with a round-of-16 loss to Perez, it was enough to keep him inside the top-50 and therefore into his first Masters. It's hard to expect much of a such a young player in his first trip to Augusta, but the week is just another indicator that the left-hander Is on a worldwide rise.

Dylan Frittelli
The lowest-ranked player in the field and therefore the No. 64 seed, Frittelli emerged from the Tony Finau-led Group 12. Even though he's outside the top-50 and a non-winner over the past year, the South African will be back at the Masters this year thanks to his tie for fifth there back in November.

Kevin Kisner
Kisner was the Match Play runner-up in 2018 and the winner in 2019, then arrived this week and promptly took down Justin Thomas and Oosthuizen. And that was more than enough to retrigger the calls for him to be on the Ryder Cup team. Kisner has never been on the team, though he did play in the 2017 Presidents Cup. After his wins on Wednesday ad Thursday, he lost to Kuchar. A case can be made that Kisner should get a Ryder Cup shot, but one good week of play, even Match Play week, is not enough to warrant a selection over someone playing better over the course of a sustained period. And most of these team competitions are two-man teams, not solos. Stricker has much more latitude this year with six captain's picks, giving Kisner his best chance to be selected. Let's see how he does the rest of the season before anointing him. Up first for Kisner is the Masters, where he's never finished in the top-20 in five visits.

Coracles Puntacana Resort & Club Championship
Joel Dahmen and Rafael Campos were tied late at the opposite-field event in the Dominican Republic. Dahmen led for much of the day and it just felt as if he was going to win, that he was the class of this weak field, even though he was behind four internationals in the field in the world rankings, including Danny Willett. He wound up winning his maiden PGA Tour event by one over Campos. Dahmen, known for wearing a bucket hat, switched to conventional baseball cap midway through the 16th hole amid windy conditions and, well, he won. Seriously, Dahmen had been underachieving all season and had fallen to 81st in the world. This doesn't get him into the Masters, but he did earn a 2.5-year exemption. It was also a huge day for runner-up Campos, who tied for third at another opposite event in Puerto Rico last month.