\u201cMost of the comments were either about aliens or smoking weed so it wasn\u2019t that big a deal,\u201d he recalls in an interview with TG. \u201cI didn\u2019t really take offence to anything and if you let people get to you it\u2019s just going to get worse so I think the best strategy was to try to be as stoic as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed. It\u2019s also that Hovland might be the least antagonistic figure in professional golf. His deranged approach to his craft has often felt frantic and exhausting, yet he still somehow manages to look like he\u2019s loving every minute of it. His authenticity and humor has warmed him to even the most intolerant of fans.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the perks that come with playing good golf are nice,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s no denying that. But that\u2019s not what gets me up in the morning. I like solving problems and try to get better and see what I can accomplish in this game.\u201d <\/p>\n
In truth, Hovland has far exceeded expectation already. Never destined to be a superstar, he was only plucked by the revered golf college program at Oklahoma State University when head coach Alan Bratton spotted him at the 2013 European Boys\u2019 Team Championship on a scouting mission for his Norwegian teammate Kristoffer Ventura.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never thought I was the most gifted athlete but I was my talent in a way,\u201d Hovland explains. \u201cI was very good at problem solving or making myself better so if I wasn\u2019t hitting the ball very far, or if I was slicing it, or my short game wasn\u2019t very good, or I couldn\u2019t read greens, there\u2019s always a solution.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never thought, \u2018Oh well, I\u2019m just not good enough.\u2019 I always believed that if I find the solution I can make myself good enough to figure this out and through doing that you have to be super honest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ironically, it is this level of inquisitiveness that cannot be taught. Hovland spent countless hours of his childhood inside a converted aircraft hangar, escaping Oslo\u2019s unforgiving winters by pounding balls into a makeshift net while his parents waited for him in the car park. More recently on PGA Tour driving ranges, Hovland has gone viral for his new training aid: swimming armbands wrapped around his biceps. His pursuit of perfection has always been as endearing as it is perplexing.<\/p>\n
![\"Viktor](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/viktor_hovland.jpg\")
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\u201cYou can\u2019t have much ego or arrogance,\u201d Hovland says. \u201cYou have to look at the information objectively and if things aren\u2019t good enough you have to change that. If you\u2019re not inquisitive and if you\u2019re not trying to learn then it\u2019s not making you any better and you limit yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n
This perspective has helped propel Hovland to the highest echelons of the game but has also left him open to scrutiny. Most notable was the head-scratching split with Joseph Mayo, the man who transformed his short game, at the end of the 2023 season. Under Mayo\u2019s tutelage Hovland had just become the FedEx Cup champion, returned 3.5 points for the European Ryder Cup team and, for a brief period at least, was arguably the best golfer in the world.<\/p>\n
Then he decided to go in a different direction.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of that has been misconstrued a little bit,\u201d Hovland says. \u201cIt\u2019s not like I had the best year of my life and now I\u2019m just going to explode everything and start from scratch. You always have tendencies you want to revert back to and there\u2019s always things that you\u2019re fighting.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you get to that level what you want to do is try to fight entropy, but certain things were creeping away from my pattern. I was starting to just draw it more and more and it was difficult for me to stay over stand over the ball and feel the fade that I\u2019d hit all my career.<\/p>\n
Like this article? See more\u00a0TG\u00a0content in your feed!\u00a0Click here<\/a>\u00a0to add Today\u2019s Golfer as a preferred source on Google.<\/p>\n \u201cTowards the end of \u201923 I played the game very well but I didn\u2019t feel super confident in what I was doing. I might be a little bit different compared to some of the other guys out here but I really value just standing over the ball and it doesn\u2019t necessarily have to go to two feet, but it gives me more confidence if I hit a flush shot that matches what I was trying to do. Let\u2019s say it goes to 15 or 20 feet, that feels like that\u2019s something that\u2019s repeatable and I didn\u2019t just get lucky.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe my ceiling for that is a little bit higher than it should be but that\u2019s also what drives me. That\u2019s why I wake up in the morning and try to get better at this game.\u201d<\/p>\n Even since this conversation, Hovland has mixed things up again<\/a>. Grant Waite, whom Hovland re-hired after the worst season of his career in 2024, is the latest coach he has jettisoned. The former PGA Tour pro helped dig Hovland out of a crisis early last year when he conjured an unlikely win at the Valspar Championship<\/a> just days after shooting a first-round 80 at The Players.<\/p>\n He had gone eight months without making a 36-hole cut in a full field tournament and only decided to play in the Valspar after a productive range session at the Innisbrook resort on the Monday of tournament week. Another quirk of Hovland, even in this era of inordinate prize purses, is that if he\u2019s not comfortable with his game, he\u2019ll simply choose not to compete. He\u2019ll spend seven hours digging dirt into the practice facility instead. But on this occasion, he enjoyed the best putting week of his career as he edged out Justin Thomas for his seventh PGA Tour win.<\/p>\n Now though, with major season on the horizon, Waite has been replaced by Hovland\u2019s former instructor TJ Yeaton, and he\u2019s been encouraged by the progress he has made as he seeks more control off the tee. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve almost been addicted to changing a little too much because I\u2019m always looking for the next thing that\u2019s going to be a little bit better and in that process you might make some mistakes as well,\u201d Hovland admits. \u201cBut without that mindset I don\u2019t think I would have been here today.\u201d<\/p>\n It is hardly surprising that Hovland does not have much brain space left to ponder golf\u2019s constantly shifting landscape. He has largely stayed out of the so-called civil war that has coincided with his rise, rejecting a move to LIV Golf<\/a> after the 2023 Ryder Cup as he did not feel the league was fertile ground to improve his game.<\/p>\n \u201cI respect other people trying to change it up and come up with new ideas and but it\u2019s hard to go against that much history on the PGA Tour and European Tour,\u201d he says. \u201cEspecially when you\u2019ve got the best players over here. Whatever pushes me to become the best player that I want to be then then that\u2019s the answer for me.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Viktor](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/viktor_hovland_smiles.jpg\")
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