To understand the undulations of Viktor Hovland’s golf, it is probably necessary to start with the boundaries of his curiosity. They stretch wider than the 15th fairway at Augusta.
So let’s go back three weeks, to a time before his first win in 19 months, and a conversation we shared in Florida about what he had been reading.
His game had not been going well, but his mind was following its habit of asking other questions.
Meaning, of course, one of the world’s best golfers was into some rather heavy material. ‘I’m currently on The Fabric of Reality by the physicist David Deutsch,’ he told Mail Sport, but that required a little explanation.
‘OK, so he kind of breaks everything down into a virtual reality. You have the Alan Turing principle, then quantum mechanics, evolution and ontological truth. It’s a bit over my level right now, but I’m finding it a fun read.’
Naturally, he was. But still that mind was asking its questions, so the book wasn’t enough, which is why we had already spent some time during that Florida morning talking about YouTube. Because what is the deal with all the aliens?
Viktor Hovland secured his first win in 19 months at the Valspar Championship on March 23
The boundaries of Hovland’s curiosity stretch wider than the 15th fairway at Augusta
He was mindful about heading too far down such roads on the aliens, as he knows how it can look, but there’s no shame in curiosity
He had asked that himself in an interview last year. He was mindful about heading too far down such roads here, as he knows how it can look, but there’s no shame in curiosity. And this 27-year-old Norwegian is a curious guy.
‘The last couple of years they’ve had some hearings in US Congress,’ he told me. ‘David Grusch had an appointment there and was talking about non-human intelligence and it’s fascinating to think about, right?’
Correct, but most of us might need a touch more context – Grusch is a former United States Air Force intelligence officer who has turned whistleblower. His claims, among other things, are that the US government has conducted a secretive UFO retrieval program across many decades.
‘If that is true, what are the implications?’ Hovland asked, and if we are to be boring about it, if we are to find a trail of bread crumbs that lead back to sport, what he said next was all part of the broader point: ‘I guess I am just into asking questions.’
It’s a maddening game, golf. Perfection doesn’t exist, nor does total ownership of one’s swing – as they say, you only ever rent it.
If Tiger Woods could win seven out of 11 majors between 1999 and 2002, and none of the next 10, then why should Hovland be spared a slump?
This is where the appetite for questions comes into it. Or rather the peril of asking too many.
Because Hovland was among the very best not so long ago. At the end of 2023, he won twice on the PGA Tour in the space of five starts, including the Tour Championship, which was worth a £14million jackpot.
Hovland was among the very best not so long ago. At the end of 2023, he won twice on the PGA Tour in the space of five starts
Hovland was a star of the 2023 Ryder Cup for Europe and had finished in the top four in two of the previous five majors
By May 2024, he had finished no higher than 19th in seven tournaments
He was also a star of that year’s Ryder Cup for Europe and had finished in the top four in two of the previous five majors.
And then he wanted more. That meant sacking his coach, Joey Mayo, in the November, believing there was a repeatable, bankable solution amid the vagaries of hitting balls with sticks.
By May 2024, he had finished no higher than 19th in seven tournaments, then got with Mayo again for the US PGA Championship. He was third.
But come the end of the year, having missed the cut at the three other majors and failed to win all season, he split from Mayo for a second time.
The search for secrets in the sky is one that has evidently consumed him. When we spoke at the Players Championship, with next week’s Masters in the foreground, he had missed two cuts in a row and was down to world No 19 from a peak of No 3.
According to his own assessment, he ‘sucked’. But the previous Wednesday, something had happened on the driving range at Bay Hill.
‘I kind of had a eureka moment and I hit the ball really good,’ he told me, and what followed was one of the most apt descriptions of how infuriating and brilliant golf can be, from the elite down to the hackers.
‘I’ve tried so many different things,’ he added. ‘You hit a couple of bad shots and then you revert back to trying to look for something else. You go searching.
The search for secrets in the sky is one that has evidently consumed him
Hovland describes the ‘eureka’ moment he had on the driving range at Bay Hill
Between quantum mechanics, ontological truth and the existence of aliens, we can probably assume no one has looked under more stones to find ways to make success possible
‘But that eureka moment, that doesn’t happen often at all, especially at this level. That was kind of the first time that I felt, “OK, I know this is right, and even if I hit a bad shot, I’ve just got to go back to sticking to working on this thing”.
‘That eureka moment was figuring out how I used to do it, rediscovering some things that I wasn’t aware of that I was doing in the past, and that I had lost trying new things.
‘People talk about my curiosity and that is right. But I do think it has been mis-portrayed a little – people think I went out and won the FedEx Cup (the 2023 Tour Championship) and said, “Oh, this isn’t good enough. I need to change everything”.
‘That year, I was winning and it was great, but it wasn’t because my swing was the best. It was because I was a more complete player and I was in control of my emotions.
‘My strategy had got a lot better, and my short game, and my ball striking was good enough. And then things started to kind of creep a bit more to where I couldn’t just continue doing what I was doing. I was at an impasse. I had to make a decision – either I push myself to do something or things are going to go off the rails eventually.
‘I had got to a point where the ball was not responding to what I’m envisioning and it’s pretty hard to play golf at the highest level when that happens. I won’t lie – there have been times in the last year that have been dark and emotional.
‘I made some decisions and I went down rabbit holes that weren’t conducive to fixing it.’
The legacy of that eureka moment can be told in two parts. The first is that he went out the day after our conversation and shot 80 in the first round of the Players Championship and missed the cut by a mile.
A little over a week ago he won for the first time since August 2023 at the Valspar Championship in Palm Harbor
With the Masters up next, there is a temptation to resurrect the conversation around when Hovland will break through and win a major
The second is that a little over a week ago he won for the first time since August 2023, at the Valspar Championship.
‘It’s been quite the struggle the past year and a half, so to come back and win is quite incredible,’ was his reflection. ‘It just goes to show this game is pretty crazy.’
With the Masters up next, there is a temptation to resurrect the conversation around when Hovland will win a major. Maybe that in itself would be crazy at this stage of the curve. A question too far, even for Hovland.
But between quantum mechanics, ontological truth and the existence of aliens, we can probably assume no one has searched under more stones to find ways to make it possible.
