Viktor Hovland finally bagged a PGA Tour win at one of the biggest events this season. And then some.
Hovland has won in each of the last four seasons on Tour, but fellow pro Edoardo Molinari, who doubles as Hovland’s performance coach, noted that his previous wins shared something in common.
Indeed, all of his Tour wins before 2023 had been on tropical islands: in Puerto Rico and twice in Mexico near Cancun, plus two more unofficial titles in The Bahamas. It’s ironic given that Hovland grew up in the cold of Norway.
“Sometimes I tease him that it’s about time he wins on a serious golf course, not at a tourist place,” Molinari said.
Muirfield Village Golf Club, the course Jack Nicklaus built near his childhood home in Dublin, Ohio, and annual host of the Memorial, certainly qualifies as “a serious course.” As does Olympia Fields, a former major championship site near Chicago where Hovland shot a final-round 61 to win the BMW Championship in August. The same goes for East Lake in Atlanta, where Hovland ran away with the Tour Championship and the FedEx Cup Playoffs title, his second win in two weeks.
Edoardo Molinari, left, and Viktor Hovland, right, discuss a shot during a practice round before the 2021 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines in San Diego. (Harry How/Getty Images)
What made the Memorial victory special for Hovland was the way he won: without his best stuff from tee to green but with a short game that has made great strides and a putter that continually bailed him out.
He also credited his improved course management. Two years ago he played a practice round at the U.S. Open with Molinari, the brother of 2018 British Open winner Francesco, and a week later Hovland implemented some of Edoardo’s tips at the DP World Tour’s BMW International in Germany and won the tournament.
“I was impressed with the way his mind worked,” said Hovland, who in a separate interview described him as “a genius when it comes to the stats.”
Number cruncher
Hovland hired Molinari, 42, to help with his strategy, and it has paid big dividends. Speaking ahead of his victory at Jack’s Place, Hovland noted that Molinari crunched his numbers and discovered that when Hovland attacked greens with pitching wedge and 8-iron, he was short-siding himself 30 percent of the time, above the Tour average of 20 percent.
“Because I’m a good iron player, it should be closer to 15 percent of the time if not less than that,” Hovland said. “I was putting too…
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