It’s common courtesy for professional players to occasionally mention their swing instructor during an interview. In the case of Billy Horschel, you will hear the name of his coach, PGA Tour Performance Center director Todd Anderson, nearly every time he steps onto the podium to discuss the status of his game.
The Horschel-Anderson relationship is a fascinating one. In a climate where players sift through teachers like someone who leases their car changes to the trendiest model every few years, the pair have been together since 2008 when Horschel was still in school at the University of Florida. Former Gator coach Buddy Alexander encouraged Horschel to work with Anderson as he looked forward to professional golf, and the two have been conspicuously inseparable ever since.
Like a therapist who reassures his patient, Anderson is relied upon to ensure Horschel believes in the direction he’s headed. Some players more or less drive their own bus with fine-tuning from another set of eyes along the way, but Horschel views Anderson as the quarterback of his team, a piece as essential as the talent and drive that got him to this level in the first place.
Earlier this year when Horschel was asked about the progression of his game, he showed how much that dynamic matters to him. It’s a sentiment he repeats often.
“It's a little unnerving for me sometimes to not see him before I come out to an event,” said Horschel, who won the BMW PGA Championship two weeks ago. “We put in a lot of hard work, he's done a lot of good stuff with me and I trust that what we're doing is paying off and I just got to stay out of my own way and if I do that, it will be a good thing.”
While Todd Anderson guided Billy Horschel from a pure instruction standpoint, the relationship goes well beyond the swing as Anderson is also a confidant who relishes a role wearing many hats.
That confidence in the partnership has been fundamental to Horschel’s success. Dating back to 2013, Horschel has won six times on the PGA Tour and is inside the top 50 in career earnings, totaling just north of $28 million. He may not have received a call from U.S. Ryder Cup captain Steve Stricker telling him he didn’t make the squad, but the 34-year-old has gotten a lot out of his play.
Recent work with Horschel’s iron game has been critical to a season where he also won the WGC-Match Play Championship and came tied for second in the WGC-Workday Championship at The Concession. Anderson and Horschel pored over stats and realized his approaches were too often going longer than expected.
“He was struggling with partial shots, so when he tried to take five to 10 yards off the shot with the equipment he was using, the ball wasn’t spinning enough and was actually going farther when he tried to take something off of it,” Anderson explained.
A part of the issue was equipment related. Horschel found different iron heads that alleviated the issue, and the two went to work on getting better at awkward yardages.
“Let’s say he hits his 7-iron 175 yards and he hits his 8-iron 160 yards,” Anderson said. “We’ll pick a number in between those two and he has to be two or three yards within that number to get credit for that shot.”
It helped as Horschel ranked No. 22 on tour in approaches from 100-125 yards, one of the most critical distances in a modern game that gives players more wedges than long irons. And while Anderson guided Horschel from a pure instruction standpoint, the relationship goes well beyond the swing as Anderson is also a confidant who relishes a role wearing many hats.
“If you are going to teach players of this caliber, it can’t just be like going to see the doctor,” Anderson said. “It’s not just ‘Take the medicine and move on.’ The relationship is much deeper than that … when things are not going well, you have to find a way to motivate and encourage while being a friend and a coach at the same time. Sometimes you have to kick them in the fanny a little bit when they are not working very hard or wandering off trying too many new things.”
The relationship is not just interesting because of its duration and how close the two are. Anderson himself has a compelling background.
Having started out as a club pro at Elk River Club in the mountains of North Carolina, Anderson became the director of golf at Old Marsh Golf Club in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, in the late 90’s and faced the decision of developing deeper relationships with tour players as an instructor or staying in the private golf sector in a more traditional role.
He went with teaching, which led him to start his own academy down the road at The Breakers. Seven years later, he took an opportunity with Sea Island Club Golf Performance Center in Georgia and his career really blossomed as he rose in the instructor rankings and won 2010 National PGA Teacher of the Year. All of it came through taking a more holistic approach to the game with his students. By bringing on a top physical trainer, sports psychologist, putting specialist and others, Anderson was on the cutting edge of creating an academy where both elite professional players and typical 20-handicap amateurs could break down their games into specific departments.
“If you look at what the best players in the world are doing, they have specialists for every aspect of their game,” Anderson said. “So why not let the average player have access to improve with that same opportunity?”
That concept Anderson has championed made him an ideal fit for his current role, a quick drive down I-95 from Sea Island, where he spent 14 years, to Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. Anderson is the director of the PGA Tour Performance Center at TPC Sawgrass, a facility that recently celebrated its fourth anniversary after opening in 2017, the same year Anderson arrived. About 50 percent of his clientele are professional players and another 25 percent are elite amateurs, but the remaining 25 percent are typical hackers who have access to some of the top training aids in the country. The technology includes TrackMan that offers swing analytics, BodiTrak force sensing mats to measure balance, K-Vest 3D to gauge body movement, as well as Quintic Ball Roll and SAM PuttLab to break down everything related to putting. Club fitting and physical training are also a fundamental part of understanding the golf swing for many who come through the PGA Tour Performance Center.
It’s a value to a professional, but a lot of times it’s even more telling for an amateur who doesn’t know where the next shot is headed. It’s all a part of the unique position Anderson holds.
“Getting someone who hits a good shot every few balls and is thrilled with it is fun to teach, too,” Anderson said.
Horschel lives in the area and so does Lanto Griffin, another of Anderson’s long-time tour disciples. Griffin, who was only 12 years old when he lost his father to brain cancer, has been mentored by a Blacksburg (Virginia) Country Club pro named Steve Prater who eventually recognized that the influence of a teacher like Anderson could take Griffin to greater heights.
Griffin won twice on the Korn Ferry Tour and then won the 2019 Houston Open for his first PGA Tour triumph.
In teaching professionals like Horschel and Griffin – Tyler Strafaci, the 2020 U.S. Amateur winner who recently turned pro is also a student – Anderson aims to use a holistic approach that doesn’t just speak to whether their clubface is too closed at the top of their swing.
In talking about what the average golfer can learn from his relationships with Horschel, Griffin and others, Anderson shares how important patience is in the game.
“The biggest misconception is that average golfers think that pros don’t have any bumps in the road,” Anderson said. “They have the same struggles that average golfers have, it’s just not to the same degree. When they are trying to make a change or improve, a lot of times it doesn’t happen right away. They feel the same fear that the average person does. Just because they do it for a living, that doesn’t take those things away.”
It reminds us that a player like Horschel needs reassurance. It may look like the game comes easily to him, but there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes.
That’s where Anderson shines.
Top: Todd Anderson (left) and Billy Horschel shown working on the range in 2014.
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