After months of waiting, Horschel is back

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Billy Horschel has only played in four events on the PGA TOUR this season, missing the cut in all of them.

Billy Horschel remembers the day like it was yesterday: March 8, 2010. It was the day his rookie season on the PGA TOUR, for all intents and purposes, came to an end with surgery on his left wrist.

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The weeks that followed included Horschel often not going to bed until 3:00 in the morning because, "I had taken so many naps during the day." There was also plenty of time spent on the couch in his Jacksonville Beach condo, where he watched a lot of television, including golf.

"I watched every week, I never missed a minute," Horschel said. "I love golf and I love sports. Other guys may have had an injury and wouldn't stand watching it; I watched as a fan, but I also tried to learn and think of what I would do in certain situations."

Now Horschel gets to play instead of watch. He's in the field for this week's Nationwide Tour event, the Cox Classic Presented by Lexus of Omaha, where he'll play his first tournament in more than five months.

"The tendons are still sore and weak," Horschel says of his left wrist. "But it feels good. It feels good to go out and have no restrictions.

"I feel good about my game, but it's still my first tournament. It's just a matter of getting the reps under my belt."

To some extent, though, he will have restrictions. Horschel, who was a three-time first-team All-American at the University of Florida, will play the rest of this season on a Major Medical Extension before returning to q-school in December as he tries to improve his status on TOUR. The only TOUR event he will likely play this season is the McGladrey Classic during the Fall Series.

How Horschel got to this point was as bizarre as it was frustrating. His wrist actually began bothering him at q-school last year. "It was really swollen and hurt when I made a bad swing," said Horschel, who, for as far as he can tell, just woke up one morning with a sore wrist. "Thank god q-school didn't go a couple more days because it got really bad afterwards."

Horschel played in four events this season, including the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. But when he got to Mexico a week later, he couldn't play his practice round because the pain was so bad. A series of X-rays, an MRI and an ultrasound followed, all of which revealed an injury similar to the one Luke Donald sustained a few years ago.

The toughest part of what would come next for Horschel was seeing good friends and fellow 20-somethings Rory McIlroy and former Walker Cup teammate Rickie Fowler have success. They were guys he knew -- and beaten.

"I'm not going to lie, it sucks," said Horschel, who finally got clearance to begin hitting balls again in mid-May. "When you see your buddies doing well, you're happy for them. At the same time, you're sitting there thinking that could be me.

"There was a week where I felt bad. I felt really bad. The weirdest part was that while I was away from golf, I didn't feel like I was a member of the TOUR anymore."

That's the nature of an individual sport, where there are no teammates to surround yourself with and no locker room to hang out in. Still, Horschel tried to stay as close to the game as he could, even if he wasn't part of it.

During THE PLAYERS Championship, Horschel went to every practice round. He talked to McIlroy, who had heard about his injury, for 10 or 15 minutes and tried to soak in the conversation. In other words, the positive message was that not a lot of guys get a TOUR card at 23 years old, the way Horschel did, or have the success McIlroy did by the time he was 21.

Fast forward to Wednesday, and Horschel was back in front of the television. Only this time he was watching from a hotel room in Nebraska and on the eve of what he says feels like his first tournament.

In a way, it is.