'I Know Exactly Why It Happened' - Viktor Hovland Reveals Reason For Swing Troubles
The Norwegian said he tried to return to hitting his fade in the off-season and it resulted in his swing falling out of its pattern
Cast your mind back a year and Viktor Hovland was getting ready to win in back-to-back weeks to seal the FedEx Cup, and its $18m bonus, before starring in Europe's Ryder Cup victory in Rome.
The Norwegian reached 3rd in the world rankings after the best season of his career, and then decided to change things. He moved away from coach Joe Mayo - before reuniting in May - to try and improve his game to take him to the next level.
It hasn't gone to plan, with Hovland needing a good performance to even qualify for next week's BMW Championship after missing three of four cuts in the Majors and failing to record a win or a runner-up all season.
Speaking ahead of this week's FedEx St Jude Championship, the 26-year-old from Oslo admitted that he wanted to change things in the off-season after he found he was starting to hit more of a draw.
"The things that I did in my swing that made me good, that made me able to predict a certain ball flight, I went home and tried to do a certain move, not necessarily because I had in mind that I wanted to change my pattern. I knew my pattern was really good. But I was upset that I wasn't cutting the ball as much as I would have liked," he said.
"My ball flight started to become a little bit of a draw, which is fine. I was still hitting it good. But sometimes visually I would have liked to have seen the cut.
"Then in the off-season I made a conscious effort to try to cut the ball more, and when I did that, I ruined a relationship that happens in my swing that makes it really difficult for me to control the face coming down.
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"So now it's just kind of me learning from that. I know exactly why it happened. I know exactly what happens because I've gotten myself measured, and now it's just kind of a process of getting back to where I was. But at least I know I have all the data and the facts on the table to go about it."
Hovland is confident he has found something with coach Joe Mayo, and he'll need to as he currently sits outside the cut-off for the second FedEx Cup Playoffs event next week.
"I'm not sure how long it's going to take for me to play my best golf. It might be this week. It might be next week. But at least now I'm on a path to progress," he said.
"I'm on a path to improvement. Whereas before, one thing is playing bad, but you don't know why and you don't know how to fix it. That's very challenging mentally.
"I might play terrible this week, but at least I feel like I'm on a path to improvement, and that's all that kind of matters for me."
Hovland currently ranks 57th in the FedEx Cup standings and is 115 points outside of the top 50, meaning he'll likely need a top-15 finish this week to move into the field for the BMW Championship.
Elliott Heath is our News Editor and has been with Golf Monthly since early 2016 after graduating with a degree in Sports Journalism. He manages the Golf Monthly news team as well as our large Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages. He covered the 2022 Masters from Augusta National as well as five Open Championships on-site including the 150th at St Andrews. His first Open was in 2017 at Royal Birkdale, when he walked inside the ropes with Jordan Spieth during the Texan's memorable Claret Jug triumph. He has played 35 of our Top 100 golf courses, with his favourites being both Sunningdales, Woodhall Spa, Western Gailes, Old Head and Turnberry. He has been obsessed with the sport since the age of 8 and currently plays off of a six handicap. His golfing highlights are making albatross on the 9th hole on the Hotchkin Course at Woodhall Spa, shooting an under-par round, playing in the Aramco Team Series on the Ladies European Tour and making his one and only hole-in-one at the age of 15 - a long time ago now!
Elliott is currently playing:
Driver: Titleist TSR4
3 wood: Titleist TSi2
Hybrids: Titleist 816 H1
Irons: Mizuno MP5 5-PW
Wedges: Cleveland RTX ZipCore 50, 54, 58
Putter: Odyssey White Hot OG #5
Ball: Srixon Z Star XV
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