Asheville instead of Wentworth
Billy Horschel has played the BMW PGA Championship every year since 2019, the pandemic season aside, and he has won it twice. This week he is in North Carolina instead.
“Unfortunately, due to my not-so-stellar play on the PGA Tour this year, I’m going to have to skip,” he posted. “I’m devastated. I’m upset. It’s a decision that was really tough to make.”
The reason is a number. Horschel sits 100th in the FedEx Cup heading into the fall. Finish outside the top 100 once the autumn events are done and he loses his full PGA Tour card for the first time in more than a decade.
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From 53rd in the world to 162nd
The slide has a cause. Horschel missed five months in 2025 recovering from hip surgery and has not recorded a single top-10 finish on the PGA Tour this season. He opened the year 53rd in the world ranking with the Players Championship and the Masters on his mind. He is 162nd now.
His exemption from winning in the Dominican Republic in 2024 expires at the end of this season, which removes the safety net underneath him. The inaugural Biltmore Championship in Asheville is the first of eight events in the FedEx Cup Fall, a two-month stretch that functions as Q-school for anyone in his position.
He is not the only player in the field carrying that weight. Lucas Glover, who joins the PGA Tour policy board next year, sits 101st, and his three-year exemption from winning in consecutive weeks in 2023 runs out. Christiaan Bezuidenhout is in Asheville at 97th, and he tees it up at the Presidents Cup next week.
The other line in the sand
Above the survival bracket sits a second cut-off worth chasing. The top 50 were settled at the BMW Championship, and the places from 51 to 60 at the end of the fall carry entry into two $20 million signature events at Pebble Beach and Riviera in 2027. Jordan Spieth is 52nd and has Japan on his October schedule.
Wentworth will manage without its most loyal American visitor. Horschel has eight tournaments to protect a card he has not had to think about since the last decade.
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