The start of a new season means a fresh start for players who may have been disappointed by their expectations compared to the previous year. While there are many stars hoping to shine again in 2025, there may be none more interesting than Viktor Hovland.
The 2023 FedEx Cup champion enters 2024 with a lot of confidence as one of the top players in the sport. The Norwegian has just won the Memorial Cup, BMW Championship, FedEx Cup and Ryder Cup as a member of Team Europe, and his name is high on many lists of those who have won major championships.
Hovland's form declined, however, when he decided he saw something different in the air than his golf ball. Hovland abandoned his old way of playing golf by introducing some draw-leaning elements into his swing, and began searching for answers.
“[Struggling] “It certainly made me appreciate the first four years of my career, like, how I played golf for those four years,” Hovland said. “It was very easy.” Just standing next to the ball and knowing, 'Okay, the ball is going to Start somewhere over there and go somewhere over there. “It’s a very stress-free way to play golf.
“Obviously, I've always tried to push myself and even if things were really good I would keep pushing it and maybe set expectations too high because maybe didn't realize how good it was or what I thought it could continue to be. Better For most of my career, every decision I made to change in order to play better worked.
“But you know, something changed last year and I just developed some bad habits and there were some key moves that I used to do in my old golf swing that I'm not doing now. And I've been trying to play my best Golf, I have to get back into it, that's where we are now.”
While some consider the 27-year-old's 2024 campaign to be a disappointment, Hovland sees a bigger picture. Despite not competing for most of the year, he was able to focus during golf's most important weeks.
Hovland nearly won the PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club and nearly did the same at the St. Jude Championship in the first week of the FedExCup Playoffs. His position in the past two playoffs was in jeopardy at the start of the PGA Tour playoffs, but he rode his performance into the postseason and finished in the top 15 throughout the season. name. All of this comes in a year where Hovland clearly hasn't been at his best.
“A lot of people probably kind of misunderstand that I made a conscious decision to go down this rabbit hole,” Hovland said. “It's just [that] Your golf swing is an ever-evolving organism, and each week you play it, you have intentions and feelings that may seem relatively innocuous. But you keep those intentions and feelings there, and then they might turn into something else. I just haven't solved the problem. …
“I add a lot of draws to my golf swing because I've always been a chipper and I like to see the ball not chip as much. And then you add more draws in there and then all of a sudden I get sick and tired of it playing in The left side, now I want to chop it off – that compensation is bad for my swing and it's just a process, you know, bad things happen, like I don't go out there and say, 'No, this is better. I made a bad decision, it's a game of golf for you and it's hard to play golf well for 20 years.”
A hard-working man, Hovland seemed to have found the answers he had been looking for. Hovland is in lockstep with swing coach TJ Yeaton after an extensive search for a new right-hand man. The pair forged a new path back to the top of the golf world.
Now all Hovland has to do is hang in there. However, that clearly wasn't the case at this week's Hero Dubai Desert Classic. Hovland finished the first 36 holes at 4 over, 17 strokes off the lead and tied for 104th.