For the first time in a long time, Billy Horschel will get to represent his country on the golf course.
The 35-year-old Floridian with seven career wins on the PGA Tour was one of six players added Wednesday to a stacked U.S. team that will try to win the Presidents Cup for the ninth straight time.
Captain Davis Love III selected two other newcomers to U.S. team competition with Max Homa — a two-time winner on the PGA Tour this past season — and Cameron Young, a 25-year-old who nearly won two major championships this year as a rookie.
The other picks went to three-time major champion Jordan Spieth, two-time major champion Collin Morikawa and Kevin Kisner, who thrives in match play and contended in the 2017 PGA Championship at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The same club will host the Presidents Cup on Sept. 22-25, and the matches would seem to be as lopsided in favor of the United States as any since the event began in 1994 to give players from outside Europe a chance to play a team competition like the Ryder Cup, which pits a lineup of Europeans against a squad of Americans.
International captain Trevor Immelman filled out his 12-man team Tuesday, picks that were delayed a week over uncertainty of who would leave the PGA Tour for LIV Golf. Immelman lost four players who otherwise would have been on the team, including British Open champion Cameron Smith of Australia and South Africa's Louis Oosthuizen, the 2010 Masters champion who a year ago had top-three finishes at the PGA Championship, U.S. Open and British Open.
Japan's Hideki Matsuyama, the 2021 Masters champion, is the highest-ranked player on the International team at No. 16.
The Americans counter with nine players from the top 15 in the Official World Golf Ranking — and no one ranked lower than Kisner at No. 26.
"These guys, this is their 12-man team that has never played together before," Love said. "So they want to win for this team. So I don't think we have to do too much messaging or motivation. Certainly you don't want to be on a losing team ever. And we know we are up against it.
"Trevor is going to have a team that's got a chip on their shoulder and that's motivated and wants to prove that they can still be competitive. We have to be careful. Certainly these guys are not going to take it lying down."
Horschel played in the Walker Cup when he was in college, renowned for his fiery matches with Rory McIlroy, but the former Florida Gator never made it through qualifying or was picked for a Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup, usually a case of bad timing.
He won the PGA Tour's FedEx Cup in 2014 with a runner-up finish and two wins — but the victories came after the captain's picks were decided. Horschel won the World Golf Championships' Dell Match Play a year ago, but after failing to qualify or be picked, he was not part of the Americans' Ryder Cup romp at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin. He won the Memorial Tournament this year and finished 11th in the U.S. standings.
"I've been around Billy a lot over the years, and I haven't figured that out, how to rein him in. You ride his wave a little bit," Love said. "He can certainly be over the top sometimes. But that's what we want."
This week, Horschel is trying to repeat as the winner of the BMW PGA Championship, the Europe-based DP World Tour's flagship event.
Homa, 31, won his first PGA Tour title at Quail Hollow in the 2019 Wells Fargo Championship. His three PGA Tour career wins since then include another Wells Fargo win in May, and he made no secret that competing in the Presidents Cup was a chief goal this year.
The leading six U.S. qualifiers were top-ranked Masters champion Scottie Scheffler, Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele, PGA Championship winner Justin Thomas, Sam Burns and Tony Finau. Thomas also won the 2017 PGA Championship at Quail Hollow.
Love went down the standings for all the picks except Kisner, who finished behind Tom Hoge and J.T. Poston. Hoge and Poston both won this year, but neither has experience in a Presidents Cup or a Ryder Cup. Kisner went 2-0-2 in the 2017 Presidents Cup when the Americans hosted at Liberty National in New Jersey.
"Kevin, again, adds some veteran leadership," Love said. "A guy in the team room that everybody loves having around is really, really easy to pair."
Cantlay, Finau, Schauffele and Thomas are the only four players from the 2019 team at Royal Melbourne that rallied on the final day to beat the International team.