Who Is Viktor Hovland's Coach?
Denny Lucas currently coaches the young Norwegian but who exactly is he?
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We take a look at who currently coaches the young Norwegian star.
Who Is Viktor Hovland's Coach?
Viktor Hovland (opens in new tab) already has a couple of PGA Tour victories to his name and currently sees himself inside the world's top-20 in the golf rankings despite being at what should be the very start of his career.
But who currently coaches the youngster? Let's take a look below.
Who Is Viktor Hovland's Coach?
Hovland coach situation appears to have changed recently. We are unsure if they still are working together but one coach Hovland had been getting advice from was Denny Lucas, a former professional player.
Related: 13 Things You Didn’t Know About Viktor Hovland (opens in new tab)
On Lucas' website it says; "I started playing golf at the age of 7 and went on to represent England at both the Boys and Mens levels as an amateur. I turned pro at age 19 and played tournaments for 18 years on the European Tour, Challenge Tour, Asian Tour, Australasian Tour, South African (Sunshine) Tour, South American Tour and one Web.com Tour event."
When he started working with Hovland is unclear but what cannot be denied is the impact Lucas has had on Hovland's game. Speaking after his 2018 U.S. Amateur victory Hovland said;
"So Thanksgiving break I went to Jupiter and saw my coach, Denny Lucas, and we worked on just trying to get a little shallower angle of attack and get the loft up, and I was hitting really high, or higher for me. For the life of me I couldn't hit a 3-wood off the deck. It was disgusting to look at.
"But after some work, I managed to kind of hit those high, piercing 3-woods and land them softly on greens. Yeah, that just gave me a lot of confidence with all the other clubs."
One of his most athletic swings is the famous 'pause' swing in which Hovland pauses at the top of his backswing then goes further with it before unleashing the downswing. Lucas says Hovland occasionally goes too far at the top but the double pump action works as a great drill to rectify that.
Related: Viktor Hovland What's In The Bag? (opens in new tab)
However Hovland appears to have been working with Jeff Smith for a few months now. In fact he credits months of hard work with Smith as the main factor as to why his chipping has improved so much, because he totally revamped his action to eliminate the leading edge on chips and use more bounce..
Speaking to Ryan Lavner Hovland said; “I wasn’t doing that before – it was all leading edge, which I could get away with in overseed or ryegrass, but out here you’re exposed immediately as soon as you get into any type of Bermuda into the grain,” Hovland said. “You have to catch it perfectly. Still got some work to do, but I’m hitting chips that I wouldn’t have been able to do before.”
Related: Who Is Viktor Hovland's Caddie? (opens in new tab)
In terms of other coaches, Hovland has worked with Pete Cowen on his short game in the past whilst his performance coach is someone called Kim Røtnes-Jensen.
Hovland also attended Oklahoma State University and would have played under head-coach Alan Bratton whilst there.
A golfer for most of his life, Sam is a Senior Staff Writer for Golf Monthly.
Working with golf gear and equipment over the last five years, Sam has quickly built outstanding knowledge and expertise on golf products ranging from drivers, to balls, to shoes.
He also loves to test golf apparel especially if it a piece that can be used just about anywhere!
As a result he has always been the one family and friends come to for buying advice and tips.
He is a graduate of Swansea University where he studied History and American Studies, and he has been a part of the Golf Monthly team since December 2017. He also previously worked for World Soccer and Rugby World magazines.
Sam now spends most of his time testing and looking after golf gear content for the website. He also oversees all Tour player content as well.
Unfortunately, Sam is not a member of any club at the moment but regularly gets out on the golf course to keep up the facade of having a handicap of five.
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