Harrington Confirms Hovland Has Joined European Tour

The Norwegian star has joined with an eye on the 2020 Ryder Cup.

Harrington Confirms Hovland Has Joined European Tour

2020 Ryder Cup captain Padraig Harrington has confirmed Norwegian star Viktor Hovland will join the European Tour with the objective of making the team next year.

In a press conference at the BMW PGA Championship, Harrington was bombarded with questions about the youngster taking the game of golf by storm.

Harrington said of him; "He really does look like fine player, like his play has been phenomenal. The way he goes about it, I'd say with a small interaction with him, looks like he's got a good attitude, well focused. Feels like to me, it looks like feels like he belongs, which is the biggest key to a young rookie coming out on Tour. You know, if they look like they are caught in the headlights, they could disappear quickly, where Victor really does look like he's here to play golf."

Harrington went even further to admit that Hovland will be joining the European Tour with the objective of making the 2020 team.

During the press conference Harrington acknowledged this saying, "He's made himself eligible. He's joined as an associate member at the moment and that's his intention for next year at a minimum. So yeah, he's made himself eligible to collect both points this week and World Ranking points all the way through. So he's in position if he plays the golf, yes, his points will start counting and we won't have a situation of three months down the line going, oh, we wish we could go back. He's been well advised."

Harrington and Hovland were paired together for the opening two rounds of the BMW PGA Championship, which was something the three-time Major winner had organised in advance.

"I have a list of players that both myself and Robert (Karlsson) will want to play with over the last number of weeks and the weeks coming," Harrington said. There's a good list, and generally they are the young players, as I said, the ones we wouldn't necessarily have played with in the past. Viktor is on that list and this is the first opportunity for that to happen, so that's why it's happened this week. But he's a name amongst, you know, maybe 20 names that we have chosen that we want to get out there and build those relationships with."

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