PEBBLE BEACH — The No. 9 player in the world currently sucks at golf. That would be Viktor Hovland, who would tell you that that’s not an unfair assessment, because he is the one who said it.
“In my opinion, I suck at it right now,” he said through a tight smile, “but that’s all relative.”
Relative indeed.
After winning three times in 2023 and capturing the FedEx Cup title, the 27-year-old endured a disappointing follow-up season on the PGA Tour, failing to win and posting just two top-10 finishes after instituting a series of swing changes. He arrives at this week’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am feeling like he might be on the verge of turning a corner. But he didn’t sound very hopeful.
“It’s not very good,” he said Wednesday in assessing the state of his game. “Yeah, it’s been frustrating. I do feel like I’m making headway, and I’m constantly trying to put the piece of the puzzle together. Even if I’m not seeing results from day to day, which is extremely frustrating, I do feel like I’m learning more. Even if kind of that domino doesn’t start to fall today or tomorrow or the next day, I’m hoping the cumulative effect of that knowledge and experience, eventually I’ll get over that hump and we’ll turn things around.”
Pebble Beach is as good a place as any. Actually, better than most for the native Norwegian. When he embarks on his opening round today at 10:32 a.m. PT, Hovland can summon copious feel-good vibes from the iconic layout, having won the 2018 U.S. Amateur here and finishing as the low amateur when Pebble hosted the 2019 U.S Open.
Hovland fell in love with Pebble Beach when he won the U.S. Amateur there in 2018.
Lachlan Cunningham
“Love it. One of my favorite courses in the world, places in the world,” he said. “Not just the golf course but outside the golf course. It’s just unique.
“Can’t not help walking around here and reminiscing old shots and thinking about those memories because that was a pretty big week for me for my career, and I didn’t really believe that me getting here today was possible before that week happened. That was a pretty big week for me.”
The happy surroundings undoubtedly softened Hovland’s mood coming off a middling T-36 finish in the season opener, The Sentry, and a missed cut at the Hero Dubai Desert Classic on the DP World Tour. He has been quizzed continually about his decision to tinker with his swing since at least June as he prepared to defend his title in the Memorial Tournament. Suffice it to say that the decision was a head-scratcher that burrows to the skull.
Three of his six tour titles came in 2023, and they were amid elite fields—the Memorial, and back-to back playoff wins at the BMW Championship (in which he shot a final-round 61 at Olympia Fields) and the Tour Championship. In addition, he finished T-2 at the PGA Championship at Oak Hill and ended up fourth on tour in scoring average at an adjusted 69.123. That compares to 91st in 2024 at 70.04 despite a strokes gained-putting improvement from 54th to sixth.
Digging even deeper into the head of a clearly intelligent and well-reasoned young man, reporters posed inevitable questions relating to his philosophy on change and the notion of adhering steadfast to certain swing concepts. Not surprisingly, he provided a sufficiently rational response.
“I don’t think you should stick to an idea, like, forever. I think just the idea of sticking to something in perpetuity is not a good way of reasoning,” Hovland said. “That doesn’t show that you have growth or you’re constantly trying to improve, which everyone out here is trying to do. But I might have … I’m very curious by nature, and I like to look under every single stone. I don’t think if I didn’t do that I wouldn’t be here today because I was never the most talented, I was never the best in my age group growing up. I always had to improve every single year to get to where I’m at today.”
Curiosity is fine, unless you wander down too many rabbit holes and lose your bearings. Hovland accepts that.
“I made a few poor decisions along the way and I’ve kind of learnt that lesson now,” he admitted. “So I’ll probably be a little bit more reluctant to make changes unless I really have good data to support that change. Now I have a better understanding of what I used to do that made me great. If I’m going to make a change, I’m way more confident in the reasoning behind that if that makes sense.
“There’s always a reason behind what I’m doing. It might not always pan out, but I’m not just messing around just to mess around.”
It would be way too harsh to say that he’s made a mess of things of late. After all, he remains in the top 10 in the World Ranking. And, no, he doesn’t actually suck at golf, even if he believes it at the moment. It’s like he said; it’s all relative.
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
