Billy Horschel made only one birdie in the championship match against Scottie Scheffler, and that was on the fifth hole when he chipped in from below the green. Even with nothing but pars and one bogey the rest of the way, he never lost a hole at the Dell Technologies Match Play in Austin, Texas.

On two par 5s, Horschel was in the fairway and Scheffler had to take a penalty drop, and both times they halved the hole with a par (No. 6) and a bogey (No. 12). On another par 5 with a chance to close out the match, Horschel again was in the fairway and Scheffler was in the trees with barely a shot out to the fairway. Horschel had to get up and down from a bunker behind the green to halve the 16th.

It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t easy. But he won on the 17th hole when Scheffler couldn’t make a 10-foot birdie to send the match down the final hole.

Max Homa had a putt to send him home on Friday. Horschel had to make a 20-foot birdie putt on the 17th hole against Tommy Fleetwood in the quarterfinals, and then won that match when Fleetwood hit out-of-bounds on the first extra hole. Even then, Horchel had to make a 5-foot putt.

And it helped that at the end of the five-day tournament, neither Victor Perez in the semifinals nor Scheffler in the championship match had their best stuff. By the end of the week, it seems no one did.

Perez lost three holes on the back nine with bogeys.

Scheffler, who had made 15 birdies in 31 hole to beat Ian Poulter and Jon Rahm on Saturday, and who made a 10-foot birdie on the 17th hole that led to a tough win over Matt Kuchar in the semifinals, didn’t make anything in the last match. His only birdie was conceded from 35 feet because Horschel had hit into a hazard.

Horschel has never played in the Ryder Cup, and while he remains outside the top qualifying spots, he still has four majors and a World Golf Championship on his schedule.

Horschel played in the Walker Cup against Rory McIlroy in 2007 at Royal County Down, where he got under McIlroy’s skin with his passion for team play and beat him in singles and foursomes match before McIlroy returned the favor by beating Horschel in Sunday singles.

But match play hasn’t always worked out for him as a pro. In four previous trips to this event, Horschel never got to the weekend. The one loss that stings was against McIlroy — him again — at Harding Park in 2015, when McIlroy birdied the last two holes and beat him on the 20th hole with a par.

Timing wasn’t on his side the one shot he had at the Ryder Cup. The captain’s picks were made the week before Horschel won the last two FedEx Cup playoff events, and beat McIlroy at East Lake to capture the cup.