Viktor Hovland Shoots 65 A Day After Saying His Game ‘Sucks’ - But He's Still Not Happy

Just a day after saying "I suck at golf right now" Viktor Hovland proved that he still does have game after shooting seven under at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

Not that the Norwegian is suddenly back, instead saying that he was pretty close to not even turning up this week due to the current state of his game - which he says still needs a lot of work.

Hovland is enduring a big rebuild of his game and although he sees some green shoots of recovery he thinks he still has a long way to go.

And that's despite shooting 65 on Thursday which merely drew the response of "I sucked a little less today" from the man himself.

Hovland said that despite his problems, he could navigate Pebble Beach under nice conditions, but is clearly still not happy even when shooting 65.

"You know, I can still play and today was good conditions And I hit a few really nice wedges and started making some putts," Hovland said after his round.

"You know, I'm trying to obviously get my mind out of the technical aspects of it and just trying to play golf. Obviously I can't complain about the - whatever the stats for today I gained probably off the tee and into the greens.

"Looks great on paper. It's just how my mind works is naturally trying to extrapolate what I did today and how would I play over the course of a season.

"I'm still not happy with my game, how it looks, but that doesn't mean that I can have great individual days or great individual tournaments.

"So I'm still really pumped to shoot 65, but I know that I'm not going to just let that overlook the problems or the issues that I have in my game. They're still there, but I was able to overcome it today."

Hovland is obviously a deep thinker and has an incredibly technical approach to the game, and a big problem as he tries to build his game back up is dealing with disappointment at not having the elite game that fired his incredible 2023 season.

"2023 I had the best season of my career and I know I can play at that level again. And I want to play at that level every single time," Hovland added.

"But I know that as I'm hitting worse and worse shots, eventually you kind of have to be a little bit kinder to yourself and just go, OK, I might hit some terrible shots but let's try to hit the terrible shots in an OK position instead of in the water or short-siding myself.

"Let's try to plot my way around and shoot OK scores and then we can work on things after the round and just keep getting a little bit better."

But although it's a psychological challenge for him right now, Hovland has no intention of seeking help on that front.

"I'm sure there's a lot of smart people and I could learn from a lot of different people. The thing is I'm very technical driven and I know that if my fundamentals are in a good spot and you see good shots and you're hitting the ball where you're looking, it's easier to think better as well.

"But when the ball is going all over the place and you're paying a guy to sit there and say "just be positive," that kind of grinds my gears a little bit. I don't want to hear that.

"There are definitely mental techniques, breathing techniques. Or you don't have to be delusional, but you can definitely change the story you're telling yourself to make you feel better.

"So there are valuable things to mental training that you can do, but at the end of the day if you can't hit the shots that you're wanting to hit, it doesn't matter."

Viktor Hovland keeping 'positive mindset' after AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am Round 1 | Golf Channel - YouTube

Watch On