Viktor Hovland takes early RBC Heritage lead

HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. – On a day when he was part of something you rarely see on the PGA TOUR – not one, but two elite players laying up into water – Viktor Hovland shifted gears seamlessly and produced scoring brilliance.

“That was really good,” a smiling Hovland said after his bogey-free, 7-under 64 led the morning wave Thursday at the RBC Heritage.

Of the fact that both he and playing competitor Justin Thomas laid up into the water at the par-5 15th: “That was really bad,” Hovland said sheepishly.

The good and bad were early – the ugly came at 2:52 p.m. when play was halted because of thunderstorms; it resumed at 4:15 p.m. – but given that there was so much more of the former we’ll start there.

Hovland’s ball-striking was impeccable. Not just because he hit nine of 14 fairways or 14 of 18 greens, but because he was at his best with the driver on fairways that don’t give you a lot of room.

“It’s pretty narrow,” he said, “so I can kind of hit that drive where I tee down, grip it down (the shaft) a little bit, and just hit like a low bullet. It’s hard for me to hit a disastrous shot with that shot.”

Examples were plentiful, the most gratifying of which were his tee shots on the final two holes of his brilliant round.

At the par-4 eighth, a tight dogleg left of 473 yards, Hovland was perfectly situated at the corner with a 292-yard drive. He hit his approach to 6 feet.

At the ninth, Harbour Town’s bowling-alley-tight par 4 of 328 yards, he hit that choked-down driver about 300 yards, then flipped a wedge to 5 feet.

The birdie-birdie finish gave him the morning’s best round, a 7-under 64, and Hovland spoke of how he hopes this week plays out better than the Masters, when he shared the first-round lead (65) but couldn’t sustain it.

“I didn’t putt it as good the last three rounds last week as I did in the first round,” said Hovland, who gave himself low marks for short-siding himself too much at Augusta. “This week, I’m just trying to play a bit more, not conservatively, but making sure that I hit more greens.”

Mission accomplished, because he hit 14 of them and converted half of those opportunities with deft birdie rolls to start stylishly at his second appearance in this tournament.

That such a splendid round shared the stage with the head-turning hiccups at Harbour Town’s 15th hole was quite inexplicable. Even Thomas rolled his eyes when asked about the two layup shots in the water at that corkscrew of a double-dogleg.

“Funky is not the right word for that hole,” said Thomas, though the 585-yarder is rather beguiling. It doglegs left, but you know there’s room right, so often times you cautiously play to that side.

Thomas drove it errantly right and was hitting off the sandy pine straw and made a mental error. “There was a lot of room right (of water that runs down the left side of the fairway and up to the green),” he said. “I just didn’t trust how much room was on the right.”

Trying to hit a mid-iron toward the water and carve it right, he wound up in the water. Shortly thereafter, Hovland was in the right fairway and had 275 to the flagstick but was playing it wisely, just trying to hit something up the fairway right of the water. Sound thinking; poor execution.

“I guess I maybe hit too much club,” said Hovland, who used 6-iron and figures he should have gone with 7-iron. “I just picked the wrong shot where I wanted to start it left and cut it off the water. Just a dead pull in the water. I should have just aimed right instead of trying to cut it off the water.”

He was only 1-under five holes into his first round and now he’d laid up in the water. But instead of letting the round fall apart, Hovland hit his fourth shot from 120 yards to 15 feet and made the par putt.

Call it a momentum-builder because Hovland birdied each of the next two holes, then shot 32 on the front nine to seize the clubhouse lead. Pretty stellar stuff from the world’s ninth-ranked player, who is among the 17 of the top 20 in the world in the field for this Designated event.

It was such a superb round, Hovland was asked if the mishaps at the 15th occurred because Harbour Town forces you to hit sliding and slicing shots.

He smiled, then laughed. “Those shots would have been pretty bad everywhere else,” he said.

On this day, he led the field in honesty, too.