A year ago, Viktor Hovland was on top of the world.
He won back-to-back tournaments, clinching the FedEx Cup and its $18 million prize, before shining in Europe’s Ryder Cup win. After reaching third in the global rankings, he decided to make changes. He parted ways with Joe Mayo but reunited with him in May to elevate his game further.
However, things didn’t go as planned. Hovland missed three out of four cuts in the Majors and hasn’t secured a win or runner-up finish all season. Now, he needs a strong performance just to qualify for next week’s BMW Championship.
Hovland shared his thoughts before this week’s FedEx St Jude Championship. The 26-year-old from Oslo said he wanted to tweak his game during the off-season because he noticed he was hitting more draws than usual.
“The things that I did in my swing that made me good, that made me able to predict a certain ball flight, I went home and tried to do a certain move,” Hovland explained. “Not necessarily because I had in mind that I wanted to change my pattern. I knew my pattern was really good. But I was upset that I wasn’t cutting the ball as much as I would have liked.”
“My ball flight started to become a little bit of a draw, which is fine,” he continued. “I was still hitting it good . But sometimes visually I would have liked to have seen the cut.”
Challenges and Adjustments:
During the off-season, Hovland made an effort to cut the ball more but ended up disrupting his swing mechanics. This made it hard for him to control the clubface during his downswing.
“So now it’s just kind of me learning from that,” Hovland said. “I know exactly why it happened…now it’s just kind of a process of getting back to where I was.”
Fans might think it’s tough seeing their favorite player struggle after such high peaks last year.
Despite these challenges, Hovland remains optimistic about his progress with coach Joe Mayo. He acknowledges he’s not sure how long it will take for him to play his best golf again—maybe this week or next—but he’s confident he’s on the right path.
“I’m on a path to improvement,” he stated firmly. “Whereas before…you don’t know why and you don’t know how to fix it…That’s very challenging mentally.”
Hovland is currently 57th in the FedEx Cup standings and needs at least a top-15 finish this week to advance into next week’s BMW Championship field.
What do you think? Will Hovland make it?
