LOS ANGELES \u2013 Don\u2019t name the trees after Viktor Hovland just yet.<\/p>\n
Hovland, who for a few years now has played Riviera\u2019s par-4 15th hole down the adjacent 17th fairway to its right, originally seemed annoyed by the two sycamores planted in the gap that Hovland has grown accustomed to threading.<\/p>\n
\u201cSmh,\u201d Hovland posted, along with a photo of the trees, to Instagram on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
But a day later, after a 2-under 69 at the Genesis Invitational \u2013 an opening round that included a regular drive and subsequent bogey on No. 15 \u2013 Hovland hadn\u2019t totally lost hope.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said to Shay [Knight, his caddie], I mean, with where the tees were we actually could have taken it down the right, but he didn\u2019t have any numbers down the right side, and that pin location (front right) maybe wasn\u2019t all that great, and still would have had to, even though I drove it good today, I think I would have liked to have a bit more confidence to be able to hit it through that gap. But definitely, you could have done it today.\u201d<\/p>\n
That confidence Hovland speaks of is starting to build. He\u2019s been seemingly neck deep in driver experimentation in recent weeks, switching between different models and lengths. He\u2019s settled now on a Ping 440K with a slightly shorter shaft that normal. While he entered the week No. 155 in strokes gained off the tee, Hovland ranked No. 32 in that stat on Thursday while missing only two fairways in cold, rainy and windy conditions. He also led the field tee to green.<\/p>\n
When the horn sounded for darkness, Hovland was four shots back of leader Aaron Rai, who was on the 17th hole.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday was really good,\u201d Hovland said. \u201cYou know, not only do the numbers show it, but like the feel of what it\u2019s supposed to feel like when I\u2019m playing well, that was a lot closer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prior to the round, Hovland traded his pool floaties for his latest training aid, a resistance band, though the purpose was still the same: To get more space between his arms and his body on the downswing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what the floaties were for, trying to get some space in the downswing,\u201d Hovland said. \u201cIt was just hard to feel that when I took the floaties away. But the band really, because it forces your body to push against the tension, and then when you take it away, it\u2019s like wow, that\u2019s what it\u2019s supposed to feel like. We\u2019re not quite all there yet even though this is a great round of golf, but that was a huge step in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2013 Don\u2019t name the trees after Viktor Hovland just yet. Hovland, who for a few years…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479752,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-479751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}