Billy Horschel Invests In Beam—Believes The Boston Company Will Become ‘The Nike’ Of The CBD World

Boston-based beam, a CBD company whose early investors include former NASCAR and IndyCar driver Danica Patrick has added golfer Billy Horschel to its roster of celebrity stakeholders. 

When Horschel was first introduced to the cannabidiol-product company that was started by a pair of former pro athletes last fall, he was considering an endorsement deal or ambassadorship. But the more Horschel mulled it over in his head, the more he knew making an investment would be the right play.

“The more I thought about it, the more I thought about how this industry is going to grow over the next five or ten years,” says Horschel. He was also sold on the safety and purity of beam’s supplements, the product design, and the entrepreneurial savvy of the founders.

“I wanted to be part of it as an investor, to help build beam into a nationally recognized brand. One day it will be the biggest CBD brand in the States and possibly around the world,” says Horschel. “I think beam is going to be the Nike of the CBD world.”

CBD has become quite popular on the pro golf circuits in the last couple of years. Scott McCarron got the hemp ball rolling when the Champions Tour player signed an endorsement deal with Colorado-based Functional Remedies in 2018.  Then in 2019, two-time Masters champ Bubba Watson hopped on the bandwagon signing a multi-year endorsement deal with cbdMD and Scott Piercy became a brand ambassador for the Florida based CBD company Real Brands and also invested in it.

Horschel estimates that around 25%-35% of tour pros currently take CBD supplements which he says is a conservative figure. “I think that number is going to continue to grow. We want to put something in our body that is healthier, safer, and not as addictive as pain pills.”

While the touted therapeutic benefits of CBD are myriad, for Horschel, improved sleep quality was one of the most impactful off the bat. Before he began taking beam’s products, he had just started using a Whoop fitness strap and noticed positive results right away.

“I didn’t get enough sleep and my body didn’t recover very well. I’ve always survived on five hours and I thought I could perform on five hours of sleep,” explains Horschel.

“Well the data showed my body wasn’t recovering from that so I needed to try to get more sleep and that was hard because I toss and turn a lot. One of the products that beam offers is ‘dream’. Wherever I went around the country, around the world, I knew if I took this product I was going to be able to get a real good night sleep. The great thing was to have actual data to back that up.  By taking ‘dream’ I saw that I was getting 7.5-8 hours of really good sleep at night and at the same time my body was recovering.”  

“That translated to me being in a better mood and my body performing on a daily basis more consistently. If I ever do have any aches and pains from training, ‘the fixer’ and ‘boost’ are two of beam’s products I’ve used out on the golf course to relieve the inflammation that I might be feeling.”

While a strong advocate for CBD, Horschel is not a proponent of the psychoactive compound of the cannabis plant. When asked if he thought the PGA Tour’s current drug policy was too strict, he had this to say: “My wife is a recovering alcoholic and in a month’s time it will be four years for her so I’m very protective of the addiction community and understanding addictive products and how they affect, not only an individual, but their families.”

“There may be some benefits to the cannabis plant but I still believe [marijuana] is an addictive product, leads to side effects and it is still the number one gateway drug to other drugs. I don’t think it’s a rigid policy. I think it’s a policy that we still ought to have in place.”

“If there’s a time in the future when the government and other bodies and organizations feel it is safe to not have it deemed as an illegal substance, then I will go along with it, but at the same time I see the other side of it.”