Horschel (66) reunites with putter at East Lake

ATLANTA – In order, when things aren’t going well for players they switch putters, then caddies and, at least according to a long-held locker room punch line, eventually wives.

Luckily for Billy Horschel’s caddie he was able to reunite with his putter after ditching it in July and things got back on track with an opening 66 at the Tour Championship that left him in a tie for third after Round 1.

Horschel returned his old Ping Piper putter to his bag, the same putter he won the Zurich Classic with in the spring, at the Canadian Open and has seen steady improvement.

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“I went from making something with my Piper to making nothing with this other one so I figured I could go back to this Piper and at least make some putts,” said Horschel, who still needed 31 putts on Thursday.

The experiment with the new putter lasted about a month and a half and, considering the success he had with the Piper, it seems like a curious move.

“Honestly . . . my (old) putter was . . . uh, I didn’t break it. It just was defective. It wasn’t right. I had beat on it too much and it wasn’t working the same,” he smiled.