Viktor Hovland’s recent coaching change seems to be taking.
During the Arnold Palmer Invitational two weeks ago, Hovland told Golfweek‘s Adam Schupak about a switch back to Grant Waite, insisting he’s trying to “get to the bottom” of his slump.
“From the outside, it looks kind of chaotic but to get to the bottom of stuff you have to make decisions like that,” he said.
After waffling about even playing this week, Hovland is off and running at the 2025 Valspar Championship. He opened with a 1-under 70 on Thursday 70 and then shot 4-under 67 on Friday and when he signed his card, he was tied for the lead. His round included just one bogey and five birdies.
“Very happy with obviously the result and the leaderboard. I still feel like I am kind of getting max out of my game right now,” he said after his round. “So not to put myself down, but for it to be sustainable at that level I need to strike it a bit better and it needs to be a bit more predictable. So I’m still working through some changes and, yeah, I just need to keep working on it. But it’s nice to see that the things that you’re working on is leading to better results immediately, and it’s always a good sign.”
To recap Hovland’s coaching carousel:
Shortly before the 2024 season, he connected with Joe Mayo. He later went from Dana Dahlquist to Waite and then returned to Mayo last May and nearly won the PGA Championship. Hovland and Mayo split again before this season. T.J. Yeaton, a pro in Nashville, was reportedly a consultant for a stretch. Hovland then teamed up with Denny Lucas, his swing coach from his Oklahoma State days, for a month. That relationship ended after a missed cut at Arnie’s Place.
Fourth in the Official World Golf Ranking a year ago, he’s 19th now but hasn’t made the weekend in a tournament with a cut yet in 2025 and he has yet to record a top-20 finish this season.
On Friday, he went into more detail about the “humbling” experience he’s enduring.
“You just wake up every day and you stand over the ball, and you just expect the ball to start in that direction and go that direction and end up somewhere close to the hole. Then it starts to not do that, it’s pretty frustrating. You start thinking things you’ve never thought before. And this game becomes infinitely more challenging and it’s already really challenging,” he said. “So it is really humbling and, you know, kind of handling those moments, I mean, I think there’s a lot of lessons to be learned there. And now that hopefully I can regain my ability and see those shots again, hopefully, I can be in a better spot where I can handle that situation better.
Perhaps he is getting to the bottom of things at the Valspar and that could be just in time, with the Masters coming in three weeks.
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