Cast your mind back a year and Viktor Hovland was getting ready to win in back-to-back weeks to seal the FedEx Cup, and its $18m bonus, before starring in Europe’s Ryder Cup victory in Rome.
The Norwegian reached 3rd in the world rankings after the best season of his career, and then decided to change things. He moved away from coach Joe Mayo – before reuniting in May – to try and improve his game to take him to the next level.
It hasn’t gone to plan, with Hovland needing a good performance to even qualify for next week’s BMW Championship after missing three of four cuts in the Majors and failing to record a win or a runner-up all season.
Speaking ahead of this week’s FedEx St Jude Championship, the 26-year-old from Oslo admitted that he wanted to change things in the off-season after he found he was starting to hit more of a draw.
“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, 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,” he said.
“My ball flight started to become a little bit of a draw, which is fine. I was still hitting it good. But sometimes visually I would have liked to have seen the cut.
“Then in the off-season I made a conscious effort to try to cut the ball more, and when I did that, I ruined a relationship that happens in my swing that makes it really difficult for me to control the face coming down.
“So now it’s just kind of me learning from that. I know exactly why it happened. I know exactly what happens because I’ve gotten myself measured, and now it’s just kind of a process of getting back to where I was. But at least I know I have all the data and the facts on the table to go about it.”
Hovland’s best finish so far in 2024 was a 3rd-place at the PGA Championship
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Hovland is confident he has found something with coach Joe Mayo, and he’ll need to as he currently sits outside the cut-off for the second FedEx Cup Playoffs event next week.
“I’m not sure how long it’s going to take for me to play my best golf. It might be this week. It might be next week. But at least now I’m on a path to…
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