This Game Makes No Sense

Let me start this with a little personal story.

Two weeks ago I was in Florida for a bachelor trip and we played a couple rounds. I live in New England so the game is obviously a little rusty, but I striped it at the range before heading out—for golfers, we know that’s a curse, not a blessing. Anyway, I ended up hitting nine tee shots either out of bounds or into water hazards and went on to shoot 99. I’m a seven handicap, so that’s about the worst round I’ve played in the last 10 years.

A day later, I was 4 over through 16 holes—I finished triple-bogey, but we’re gonna focus on the positives. All that to say, this game makes absolutely no sense.

Viktor Hovland proved that once again over the weekend.

At THE PLAYERS, the Norwegian couldn’t keep it on the planet—at least on Thursday. He stumbled his way around TPC Sawgrass and shot a cool 80 during the opening round and went on to miss the cut.

*Getty Images

In his two starts prior to the PGA TOUR’s flagship event, he also failed to make it to the weekend. So to say there was little hope for him to win at Innisbrook’s Copperhead Course would be the understatement of the year.

And if you’re thinking something along the lines of, “These guys are the best players in the world, they can turn it around that quickly,” that might be the case for some, but Hovland was stuck in a pretty bad spot.

I’ve lost count of how many times he’s switched coaches over the last 18 months since winning the TOUR Championship in 2023, and he did it again just a few weeks ago at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

According to Golfweek’s Adam Schupak, Hovland rekindled his relationship with Grant Waite after missing the cut at Bay Hill. The pair’s short stint together in 2024 was just one of many for Hovland, a self-proclaimed tinkerer.

They put in some good work leading up to the tournament, but Hovland didn’t even know if he would play in the Valspar as late as Tuesday afternoon.

“I played nine holes in the pro-am (Wednesday) morning and we were here ready to go. But, yeah, wasn't sure I was going to show up, but I'm glad I did,” he said Sunday night.

And on Friday, he told the media the same thing every amateur golfer is thinking every second they’re on a golf course: “I don't have control over what I'm doing.”

We’re a day removed from his win and I still have no clue how he got it done. And from the sound of things, I don’t think he does either.

“(My swing)'s still not great,” he said while sitting next to the trophy. “I'm still hitting the same shots that I have been the whole year, really. But it's just I was able to time it extremely well this week. It felt like every single good shot that I hit I just saved it really well. Because the club is just not in a great place for me coming down. It's just not what it used to be. So I can't really rely on my old feels anymore because the club is in a different spot and I have to change my release pattern to make that work.”

If we take him at his word, this performance might be a flash in the pan. He was able to time up things on the way down more often than not at the Valspar, and that led to a winning week. But he’d be kidding himself if he thought he could do that on a weekly basis. It’s way too hard to play consistent, high-level golf like that.

And he knows it.

With the year’s first major championship on the horizon, Hovland has a few weeks to find some feels and dial it in. I just can’t wait to see what he does next.