Entering Sunday, Billy Horschel was in control of his fate at the BMW Championship after shooting a 63 in the third round and taking a three-shot lead over Ryan Palmer. He made sure he didn't repeat his poor finish at the Deutsche Bank Championship and held on to win the playoff event at Cherry Hills.
Horschel carded a 69 in the final round to finish in first place at 14-under for the tournament. He earned $1.44 million and 2,500 FedExCup points with the victory and jumped up to second place in the standings, just eight points behind Chris Kirk, the winner of last week's Deutsche Bank Championship. Bubba Watson finished in second place at 12-under and earned $864,000 and 1,500 FedExCup points, which puts him in third place overall in the standings with just one more playoff event remaining.
Sergio Garcia, who was atop the leaderboard after the second round, carded a 2-over 72 in round 3 and then squandered his opportunity at a comeback when he triple bogeyed the par-5 17th. The Spaniard finished with a 67 and 9-under for the tournament, tied for fourth place with Jim Furyk, Rickie Fowler and Ryan Palmer. Horschel had a similar late round incident at the Deutsche Bank Championship last Monday when he chunked a 6-iron on the 18th hole, which resulted in a bogey and a two-stroke loss to Chris Kirk.
"Obviously, after last week, a lot of people on Twitter were calling me a choker," said Horschel, in this ESPN article. "I didn't choke. I made one bad swing at a bad time. To start with a three-shot lead today and hold on means a lot. If I were a betting man, I'd put some money on me."
The field will now head into the TOUR Championship this Thursday, September 11, at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, Georgia. Kirk, Horschel, Watson, Rory McIlroy and Hunter Mahan are the top five in the FedExCup standings and this final event will decide their cumulative rank for the 2013-2014 PGA season. Horschel's performances as of late have him in a good position going into the year's final playoff event, as he's compiled 37 birdies and just 10 bogeys in his last eight rounds of golf.
Check out the official FedExCup standings here.
