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<\/a><\/p>\nHovland spent more than four hours on the practice range at Shinnecock Hills on Saturday at the U.S. Open, one day after missing the cut, content to let the major championship continue around him while he chased his phantom-like form. According to those who chart such things, Hovland hit 230 balls in that practice session.<\/p>\n
Whatever Hovland found that Saturday afternoon went with him to TPC River Highlands, where he took down Scheffler with a Monday morning birdie, needing about 15 minutes to end a tournament that surrendered to darkness on Sunday evening.<\/p>\n
Two numbers explain why Hovland had just one finish inside the top-10 since early February \u2013 a third place at the RBC Canadian Open sandwiched between missed cuts at the PGA Championship and the U.S. Open.<\/p>\n
Hovland ranked 104th in strokes gained off the tee and 83rd in strokes gained putting entering the Travelers Championship. It doesn\u2019t take a math major to understand that lousy off the tee and lousy on the greens doesn\u2019t add up to great success.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo even if you\u2019re playing good golf it\u2019s still kind of in the back of your mind a little bit, like, oh, are we over it, are we good? And you have a little bit of doubt still in there, even though you\u2019re hitting good shots.\u201d \u2013 Viktor Hovland<\/p>\n
At TPC River Highlands, Hovland led the field in strokes gained off the tee and was ninth in strokes gained putting. That turned into 21-under par in regulation and a 6-foot birdie to win on the lone playoff hole.<\/p>\n
What changed?<\/p>\n
Some of it as simple as shots went where Hovland intended them to go, easier said than done.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of the shots that I\u2019ve seen are just like, whoa, how is that even possible? Like, I\u2019ve never seen some of those shots before. Then I\u2019ve had moments where, OK, I think I\u2019m onto something, it feels good, and then that one big miss comes back again,\u201d Hovland said Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo even if you\u2019re playing good golf it\u2019s still kind of in the back of your mind a little bit, like, oh, are we over it, are we good? And you have a little bit of doubt still in there, even though you\u2019re hitting good shots. I don\u2019t know if there\u2019s like this one point where you go, oh, I got it now, it just kind of those big misses stop happening and then you just expect to see the ball going straight. Kind of like what happened this week.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Scottie Scheffler (left) congratulates Viktor Hovland after their Monday playoff at the Travelers Championship. Ben Jared, PGA Tour via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Hovland said there were signs of it at the U.S. Open, but he was done in by a wild one off the tee at the par-4 12th where he drove it out of bounds in the second round. Those two strokes proved costly as he missed the cut by one.<\/p>\n
\u201cI finished third in Canada and felt like I was on the right track, and just scored horribly last week [at the U.S. Open] and just didn\u2019t feel super comfortable. I had a couple of really bad misses, but was seeing a lot of progress,\u201d Hovland said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo then getting into this week, I feel like I could easily turn it into a really good week. \u2026 I don\u2019t know. It\u2019s a crazy game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scheffler understands.<\/p>\n
It was surprising to see him miss a 4-footer to extend the Monday morning playoff after he had made a collection of 8- to 10-footers on Sunday just to get into a playoff.<\/p>\n
His level of excellence is such that what would be a brilliant season by most players\u2019 standards is a conundrum in Scheffler\u2019s world. He has been in the final pairing in the final round six times this year and has just one victory, and that came at the American Express in January.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s enough to make a strong case that, at this point, he should be the player of the year though Matt Fitzpatrick and Cameron Young might want to have a word about that.<\/p>\n
Statistically, the numbers still glisten but his approach play from 50 to 125 yards has declined marginally and he has burned more edges, it seems, on the putts that matter this year.<\/p>\n
Still, he has a streak of 35 consecutive top-25 finishes, the second-longest in the last 40 years, three shy of the mark established by Tiger Woods.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo when you see a guy like that who practices as hard as he does and works as hard as he does, you\u2019re always glad to see those people have success.\u201d \u2013 Scottie Scheffler<\/p>\n
Scheffler\u2019s four runner-up finishes this season include the Masters, where he made a late run at Rory McIlroy; the RBC Heritage, where he lost a playoff to Fitzpatrick, who hit a brilliant approach on the first extra hole; the Cadillac Championship, where Young looked unbeatable; and the Travelers Championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cBall striking is definitely in a good spot. That was some of the best I hit it all season, which is a good spot. Obviously I think just a little bit, a little disappointed with the results,\u201d Scheffler said Monday.<\/p>\n
Scheffler will take this week off before playing the Genesis Scottish Open and the Open Championship at Royal Birkdale ahead of the FedEx Cup playoffs in August.<\/p>\n
On Sunday at the U.S. Open, as Scheffler was warming up with a chance to complete the career Grand Slam, he saw Hovland grinding away.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw him on the corner of the range hitting balls by himself. So he\u2019s never going to be a guy that\u2019s \u2013 if he\u2019s not having success it\u2019s not because he\u2019s not putting in the work,\u201d Scheffler said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo when you see a guy like that who practices as hard as he does and works as hard as he does, you\u2019re always glad to see those people have success.\u201d<\/p>\n
Top: Viktor Hovland does the Viking row with Norwegian fans after winning the Travelers Championship. Ben Jared, PGA Tour via Getty Images
\n\u00a9 2026 Global Golf Post LLC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was Viktor Hovland, sitting on a Connecticut hillside, a Norwegian flag draped over his shoulders, joining a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":668580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,8693,3026,101,56,54,55,14693],"class_list":["post-668579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-pga-tour","tag-scottie-scheffler","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-viktor-hovland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}