In logjam atop leaderboard, Billy Horschel hoping experience gives him an edge

GREENSBORO, N.C. – It’s a quartet atop the leaderboard at the halfway point of the Wyndham Championship, but Billy Horschel hopes that some extra experience will give him the edge in what he expects will be a “shootout” this weekend at Sedgefield Country Club.

Co-leader Tom Hoge has never won on the PGA Tour before. Neither has Talor Gooch, who’s also in the group at 10 under, while Si Woo Kim counts the 2016 Wyndham as one of two career victories. But Horschel has the most impressive trophy collection of the group, with five career victories to go along with the 2014 FedExCup, and he’s looking to add to that this week in Greensboro where he fired a second-round 64 to join the logjam at the top.

“It was really solid. Gave myself a lot of opportunities to make putts out there,” Horschel said. “I put the ball in the fairway, which is key around here. If you can put the ball in the fairway, you can be aggressive to these pins and control your shots going into these greens, which is crucial.”

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Current FedExCup points standings

Horschel has had ample success at Sedgefield in recent years, with three finishes of T-11 or better over the last four years. That stretch includes a T-5 finish in 2016 and a T-6 finish last year, when he closed with 64. Horschel expects to need some similar scoring over the weekend to lift the trophy on a par-70 layout that has been dampened by rain this week and where officials have implemented lift, clean and place conditions for each of the first two rounds.

“I know it’s going to be a shootout,” he said. “I know what the winning score is normally around here, I know it’s going to be somewhere between 18 and 22 under par. So I’ve just got to continue to do a good job of putting the ball in the fairway.”

Horschel has posted solid results since the break, including a pair of top-15 finishes at Muirfield Village, but he still entered the week at No. 50 in points. Eager to return to East Lake for just the second time since his 2014 triumph, he’s hoping that a strong weekend performance against a crowded leaderboard can vault him up the standings in the season finale.

“We saw the schedule and I wasn’t sure if I was going to play here or not. It’s an event I love,” Horschel said. “I knew if I played here there would be a lot of tournaments in a two-and-a-half month window, but with my position in the FedExCup, I felt like it was vital for me to come here and try to accumulate more points.”