It’s tempting, when you see a tidy second-round 67 and Hovland tied for the lead at the Valspar Championship, to declare that Norway’s greatest golfing talent is back. That would, of course, be far too neat. It’s just one tournament. We’re only halfway through. And in golf, there is no “back”, anyway. No reverse. No undo. There’s only figuring out what’s next. So we’ll offer this simple truth instead: for Viktor Hovland, Friday was a good day.
The Norwegian star’s second round consisted of five birdies against just a single bogey. At Innisbrook’s Copperhead Course, a four-under-par 67 is a special round; when he signed his card, he was tied for the lead at five under par and sat T2 near the end of play. It also guaranteed that Hovland would make the weekend at an event with a cut for the first time in 2025. Trending up, right?
“Not to put myself down, but for it to be sustainable at that level, I need to strike it a bit better, and it needs to be a bit more predictable,” Hovland said post-round.
Oh.
It’s worth remembering here that golf is a silly and unusually cruel game. If the chap in second place is dissatisfied, what do the 150 behind him think? But Hovland wasn’t being flippant or pessimistic—he was just being honest. The 27-year-old Ryder Cup star, who somehow balances being both candid and mysterious, spoke to the media for several minutes after his round. He sounded, as he has for 12 months or more, like a mechanic rebuilding a car whilst driving it. But he also offered a peek under the bonnet—a valuable glimpse into one of the sport’s most fascinating figures.
“Yeah, it sucks,” he began on Friday, characteristically direct when asked about his rollercoaster journey over the past year or so.
If you think it’s odd to nitpick when you’re T2, just recall that Hovland wasn’t satisfied at his peak either; he felt like he was cobbling his game together with duct tape at the end of 2023, when he won the Tour Championship in a rout the week after winning the BMW Championship, several weeks after claiming the Memorial that same summer, and nearly the PGA Championship too. He was the hottest player in the world, but something within him knew he needed to be better. That sparked an overhaul of everything: swing changes, coaching changes, more swing changes, more coaching changes. Despite some bright spots in 2024—third at the PGA Championship, T2 at the FedEx St. Jude—his play has fallen short of his own lofty standards, and he’s slipped from No. 3 in the world to No. 19. Though not for lack of effort.
This season began with a broken toe, another coaching switch, and a string of suspect results: he arrived this week off missed cuts at Riviera, Bay Hill, and the Players, with his 80-68 at TPC Sawgrass suggesting a golf game in flux.
Which brings us to Hovland on Friday. What’s all that been like?
“You have an ability that you can almost take for granted sometimes,” he said. “You just wake up every day, stand over the ball, and expect it to start in that direction, go in that direction, and end up somewhere near the hole. When it stops doing that, it’s pretty frustrating. You start thinking things you’ve never thought before. And this game becomes infinitely more challenging—and it’s already really challenging.”
Woof. That’s simple, but it’s heavy. One day, you hit it where you’re aiming. Then, suddenly, you look up, and it’s veering elsewhere. A game that’s been hard for everyone else but easy for you is suddenly hard for you too. That’s golf at the elite level, after all: swinging, looking up, and seeing it on your line. Everything else flows from there.
Hovland, to his credit, makes no excuses. (You could argue he’d benefit from a few.) He’d rather be in command of his game, no doubt—but he’s clearly at ease being deep in the process.
“It is really humbling, and handling those moments, well, I think there’s a lot of lessons to be learnt there,” he said.
“You start thinking things you’ve never thought before. And this game becomes infinitely more challenging — and it’s already really challenging.”
Viktor Hovland talking about losing his golf swing is pretty haunting. But I admire his relentlessness pic.twitter.com/tiNLhoEMPS
— Dylan Dethier (@dylan_dethier) March 21, 2025
One reporter pointed out—and he’s hardly the first to think it—that Hovland sounds hard on himself. Isn’t he in an excellent position in the tournament?
“I am hard on myself, yeah. But that’s also why I’m good,” he countered. “If I wasn’t hard on myself, I probably wouldn’t be out here. And yeah, I know that even with terrible mechanics, I can still get out here and shoot a couple of decent scores. But that can also lead to 80 shots at the Players because I just don’t have control over what I’m doing.”
That’s a recurring theme: Hovland is seeking control. He wants a swing he can rely on. He was dismissive of his opening-round success because his score flattered him—he made a bunch of putts—but he feels like he’s squeezing everything out of his game. He played poorly in practice rounds and hit “a lot of bad shots” in the pro-am. He’s obsessed with building something that holds up under pressure and over time. He beats that drum again and again.
“You just want something sustainable. And if your technique’s good, you’re going to play a lot of good golf in the future. That’s just how it works,” he said.
He makes that bit—something sustainable—sound simple and logical. It’s only when you dig into the specifics that it becomes clear how difficult it really is, making you wonder if it’s even possible. Hovland has re-enlisted Grant Waite as his swing coach; the two are working on yet another overhaul. The biggest problem, he says, is that he can’t trust his instincts.
“It’s tricky because you can’t really rely on your feel anymore. You have to reverse-engineer things a bit and start from scratch,” he said. “But we’re making progress.”
That, more than good shots or good scores, seems to be Hovland’s truest measure of success. Progress. He’s thinking big-picture, after all.
“At the end of the day, yes, it’s awesome being at the top of the leaderboard right now and to have a chance going into the weekend. But I truly just care about the things I’m working on,” he said. “And if the ball is behaving and doing what I want it to do, I’m going to play a lot of great golf in the future.”
That long-view strategy is essential for surviving a sport that can kick you again and again. The only downside is if you forget to savour the small victories along the way. While Hovland chases great golf in the future, he might just stumble into some in the present. His commitment to the pursuit—and his candour in explaining it—means plenty of golf fans are desperately hoping he does.
And either way, he’ll have more to learn from.
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