Viktor Hovland still searching for major win, but he found his game at Valhalla

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Viktor Hovland regretted it immediately.

For the last six months, the Norwegian superstar has kept his cards close to the vest, struggling in silence. The results spoke for themselves. Hovland was falling woefully short of replicating a breakthrough 2023 season. He didn’t want or feel the need to get into it publicly.

But on Saturday night, he slipped. In an interview with SiriusXM PGA TOUR Radio’s Jason Sobel after the PGA Championship’s third round, Hovland provided a window into just how dire his game has felt.

“I was almost considering pulling out of this event just because I wasn’t playing good at all,” Hovland said. Sobel pushed for more information, and Hovland quickly realized he had spilled the beans. “Damn it, I shouldn’t have said that.”

For the first time in months, Hovland let his guard down. Perhaps it was just a fatigued slip, a product of a tired mind after playing 54 stressful holes at a major. Maybe it was a sign Hovland had finally broken through his early-season malaise and found the answers, and whether conscious or not, he was ready to let us in.

His Sunday performance certainly pointed to the latter. Hovland shot a final-round 66 at Valhalla Golf Club and briefly held the lead on the back nine until Xander Schauffele jumped past him with three difference-making birdies. Hovland finished third at 18-under, three shots back of Schauffele. After making birdie on six of his first 13 holes, Hovland made four pars and three-putted the 18th green for a closing bogey.

Hovland is still searching for his first major victory, but he found his game in the process.

It’s hard not to equate Hovland’s resurgence with his return to swing coach Joe Mayo. Hovland had Mayo by his side for the entirety of the 2022-23 season. They shared a similar golf obsession and Mayo knew the exact buttons to push to unlock Hovland’s best performance, starting with his short game. Mayo radically changed Hovland’s form, convincing him to hit down on the ball more steeply even though it goes against today’s teaching du jour. Mayo also helped improve Hovland’s full swing, recommending he move his chest faster through impact, which tightened his dispersion. It led to three wins, a FedExCup title and Hovland’s best major finish, a T2 at the 2023 PGA Championship. Yet, over the offseason, Hovland chose to part ways. As good as his season was, his internal barometer told him it was unsustainable.

Known to search far and wide for any information that could prove helpful, Hovland dove down numerous rabbit holes, hoping to rekindle his swing feels from 2020 and 2021 when he felt he had more control. He settled on new swing coaches – Grant Waite and Dana Dahlquist – and set out to find the fix. Instead, Hovland regressed. Before this week’s PGA Championship, he had not finished inside the top-10 this season. His short game regressed to the bottom of the TOUR ranks, on pace for the worst statistical season of his career around the greens. Fed up with his performance, he reached out to Mayo last week and made a last-minute trip to Las Vegas to see him before the PGA. The visit paid instant dividends.

“He knows my swing really well. He's really, really smart, and just has a way of looking at my swing and kind of knowing what it is right away,” Hovland said earlier in the week. “(I) felt like I got some really good answers, was able to apply some of the feels right away, and I saw improvement right away.”

Hovland’s performance this week begs the question: why part with Mayo in the first place? The last six months have proven to be a test case of what’s made Hovland great. He reached incredible heights on the PGA TOUR because of his insatiable desire to learn. He found Mayo after seeing his videos on social media. Hovland’s initial swing in his amateur days was duct-taped together by various YouTube videos. His wandering mind is part of his DNA, an innate component of his success. It also appeared to be his brief downfall.

It’s just a one-week sample, but the return to Mayo has proven to be a wise course correction. This time around, Mayo helped Hovland channel what felt most natural to him, limiting the swing thoughts and swinging freely. Of someone with Hovland’s talent, often that’s all that’s needed.

“He’s a little bit of a perfectionist in golf and always searching to get better. (He) went through a couple teachers that probably weren’t the right fit for him,” said Luke Donald, who became close with Hovland during the Ryder Cup last year. “He’s so talented, I wasn’t too worried about him. I think it was just a matter of time to find the right feelings in his swing. He’s such a great ball striker and we saw one of the best players who is been in the game for the last couple of years.”

Hovland looked like one of the best players in the world on Sunday. He began the day two shots back of the lead and fell four behind after four pars to open his round. A mid-round flurry of birdies quickly erased the deficit. Hovland holed an 18-foot birdie putt on the fifth, stuck one within 5 feet on the sixth and holed a 20-footer on the seventh for his third consecutive birdie. He took advantage of the par-5 10th for his fourth birdie of the day and stuck his approach shots on 12 and 13 within 5 feet for two more.

“It’s starting to feel like playoff Viktor again,” CBS lead analyst Trevor Immelman said after the birdie on 13 put Hovland in the solo lead, referring to Hovland’s victories at the BMW Championship and TOUR Championship last fall.

Hovland had mid-range birdie chances on 14, 15, 16 and 17 but couldn’t convert any. He had a 10-footer for birdie on the 18th, which would have tied Bryson DeChambeau for the clubhouse lead at 20-under. He missed the putt, then missed the 3-footer for par.

It was a deflating end to a promising week, a reminder that Hovland will have to sustain this play and likely win again before this early-season blip is fully put to rest. He’s much further along than he was a week ago, though.

Good thing he didn’t withdraw.