There are only a few minutes left until seven in the evening. The sun begins to set. In Valhalla, only the noise of the lawn mowers, leaf blowers, some pneumatic screwdriver, and the contact of the club with a golfer’s ball on the practice field can be heard. It’s Viktor Hovland. There is not a soul on the field. No other player can be seen within about 20 kilometres. There are just over twelve hours left until the start of the PGA Championship and the golfers are locked in their headquarters with the sole idea of being ready for the big battle. The Norwegian has other plans.
It should not be surprising that Hovland is the last to leave the practice field. He defines his moment. The Norwegian, those close to him assure, is not finding the key to reactivate his game. Like so many others in the past, he got into the mess all by himself. Shortly after finishing the best season of his sports career, after winning the FedEx Cup, being one of the most outstanding heroes of the victory in the Italian Ryder Cup and almost touching glory in his first Major (curiously he finished second in last year’s PGA Championship), he decided that he had to turn his swing around like a sock.
Technical changes are delicate and complicated matters, but to simplify it a lot, Hovland swept in 2023 playing the draw (right to left effect) and decided to change to the fade (left to right effect) in 2024. He explained it in detail in the preview of the Arnold Palmer Invitational. “I had managed to get by well playing the draw, I found a way to get results, but really when I hit the ball best, which for me was in 2021, when I made the best swing, it was hitting the fade. For this reason, I have made some changes to find that feeling I used to have. I know it may seem strange, but I am a player who has never had trouble finding a way, either one way or another, to hit the ball well. I am convinced that it will not cost me much”, he explained.
Well, it seems that good old Hovland was wrong in his prediction. The changes he has made have not worked out, at least for now. That is the reason why he is playing so few tournaments in 2024. He has only been seen for about six weeks and his best result has been a 19th in the Genesis Invitational, far from the five top 10s and two victories with which he said goodbye to 2023. Scheffler, for example, has already played ten tournaments.
Hovland missed the cut at the Masters and did not play a new tournament until last week at the Wells Fargo. The reason is that he decided to lock himself in his house. This is how this guy does things. If the swing doesn’t work, you have to hammer it. He also explained this at Bay Hill. “I prefer not to play tournaments and dedicate myself to training, I prefer it, hitting balls, working at home, finding a way to feel comfortable and competitive. There is no point in playing tournaments if you are not convinced of what you are doing”, he said then.
Today Hovland is the big question mark of this PGA Championship. At the Wells Fargo he managed to finish among the top 25, so it seems, at least it seems, that he is on the way to something, although obviously, being at seven in the evening on the practice field the evening before a Major does not seem like the best sign. In a few hours we will know if the smiling Nordic golfer has managed to find the Holy Grail.
