Viktor Hovland is both a big-picture thinker and someone who is myopically focused. Such is the blessing and curse of the gifted, those given rare talent and a brain that never stops tinkering.
So after watching Scottie Scheffler run past him on Sunday at the Tour Championship, Hovland looked at the 10,000-foot view of his season, one that saw him beat Scheffler in a playoff at the Travelers and hold the 54-hole lead at East Lake. It was a season in which he contended while still searching for the feeling that has been missing since he started re-working his swing after his 2023 FedEx Cup win. Viktor Hovland is still searching for Viktor Hovland. So, in that sense, it’s positive that he can still contend with and beat the best in the world while trying to reach through smoke to grab whom he used to be. But the other part of Hovland, the one who is focused on the small details of everything, saw himself lose the first 54-hole lead of his career because he’s still not that Viktor Hovland.
“Overall, the week-wise, second place is a good showing,” Hovland said after shooting a final-round two-over 72 to lose by three to Scheffler. “Obviously pretty disappointed with how I played today, just with the position that I was at. I only would have needed one-under par to force a playoff. If I just had my normal game, my normal ball striking from the previous years, I think I take away this tournament. That’s obviously disappointing, but at the same time, it’s the way that I was able to have a chance to really win this event after being in some big holes throughout the season. I mean, I was able to battle myself out of it and win Travelers and then come back out here and almost win the whole thing.
“I kind of look at it as a huge positive, but at the same time, just a reminder of what I feel like I should have done.”
One swing perhaps perfectly encapsulates where Hovland is at in his quest to rediscover the ball-striking prowess that made him a top-five player in the world,
In the middle of the fairway on the par-4 17th on Sunday, Hovland caught his wedge thin and lost his approach over the green before eventually making bogey to end his chance at the title. Had he played his final two holes at two-under, he would have forced a playoff.
“You can’t do that with a wedge from 100 yards,” TV cameras caught Hovland muttering to himself as he marched up to the 17th green.
To Hovland, that swing is indicative of the battle he has been waging within himself. He can contend — and occasionally win — with a hot putter and raw talent, but eventually his inability to consistently strike the ball and know where it’s going will be his undoing. That must be fixed in order for him to ascend back to the level he was at when he last triumphed at East Lake.
“Scoring-wise, it’s hard to do much better than 15-under par after three days around here, but I did that mostly with the putter and just willing the ball in the hole, and that only gets you so far,” Hovland said. “I almost did it for 72 holes, but it’s really difficult when you have to do that on every single hole. When we talk about my ceiling, I didn’t feel like I was anywhere close to it, but I obviously scored really well this week.
“I feel like I’m really close. If I can just help myself out a little bit, just put the ball in the fairway and have one predictable shot, I feel like I’m going to play some really good golf. It’s just frustrating when I see the same misses coming back time and time again. The first few days, I felt like I still wasn’t swinging it all that great, but the ball went straight. On Sunday or today, I still wasn’t swinging it great, and now the ball went sideways. When that happens, it just doesn’t feel like I could have done much today. Just trying to battle it out, and actually proud of the way I was able to will myself into the tournament.”
On the season, Hovland made 15 of 19 cuts and had one win, a runner-up and four top 10s. But he also missed the cut in three out of the four majors and ranked 86th in strokes gained: off the tee.
Last year, after a near-miss with his ‘C’ game at the U.S. Open, Hovland said he needed to be nicer to himself, to give himself grace as his unending pursuit continues. But he also revealed part of his artist soul when he explained that while he wants to raise trophies, he has a purer pursuit.
“We would all like to win, that’s why we practice so hard,” Hovland said at Oakmont. “But there’s also like a deep passion in me that I want to hit the shots. Like I want to stand up on the tee and hit the shots that I’m envisioning. When the ball’s not doing that, it bothers me.”
A year and a half later, Hovland is still trying to find that ability. Even after besting Scheffler at the Travelers and having the Tour Championship in his grasp, Hovland enters the offseason still in deep search mode.
“That’s a good philosophical question,” Hovland said on Sunday when asked if his offseason would involve small refinements or big changes. “Because in this game, you might feel like you’re really far away, but you’re never really that far away, maybe as you think. But at the same time, I would like to — because I’ve deviated so far off of my original DNA, I would like to push that closer to my DNA.
“We’ll see kind of how difficult that is. The problem is that I’ve tried to do that throughout the season the last couple years, but it’s so difficult when you have to play every single week and perform. It kind of feels like you’re taking one step forward and then one step back every single week, and that takes a little bit of a toll. I would like to have just an extended period of time to where I could really make some progress and stack the chips.”
On Sunday in Atlanta, Hovland saw what he — and everyone — is chasing in the form of Scheffler. But when Hovland sees the World No. 1, he doesn’t see trophies or dollars. What he sees in Scheffler is someone who has what Hovland wants when the ball is in the air: belief and confidence.
“He knows where the ball’s going,” Hovland said of Scheffler. “I don’t think he’s trying to do too much with it. I think he knows that he’s got an edge on most guys out here. So he doesn’t have to do anything crazy. He can play smart and just kind of pick his spots, stay in it constantly.”
That’s what Hovland wants to get back to — knowing where the ball is headed at all times when it leaves his clubface, instead of hoping and willing it to the desired location.
He had it once before. He believes he’ll find it again. But for now, the search continues. Its end point is both closer than Hovland believes and further away than it looks.
