VIKTOR HOVLAND: THE NEW WAY TO GET GOOD

HOW A FEARLESS AND INSATIABLY CURIOUS SECOND-YEAR PRO FROM NORWAY DEVELOPED HIS SWING USING THE INTERNET

- MATTHEW RUDY

IN A YEAR WHEN GOLF (AND THE WORLD) was knocked sideways by a pandemic, a guy who gained 40 pounds in four months broke the U.S. Open with 200 miles per hour of ball speed, the woman who won the AIG Open Championship couldn’t get into the next LPGA major and arguably the greatest player of all time waited seven extra months to defend his Masters title on an empty, dormant Augusta National, can you really say any story is, well, surprising?

Still, Viktor Hovland would like to have a word. The second-year pro from Norway has been on a heater. A member of the celebrated 2019 class that includes Oklahoma State teammate Matthew Wolff and PGA Championship winner Collin Morikawa, Hovland validated his formidable college credentials—the 2018 U.S. Amateur and NCAA team titles and low-amateur finishes at the 2019 Masters and U.S. Open—with two PGA Tour wins in his first year as a professional. Both of them came in dramatic fashion. In February 2020 at the Puerto Rico Open, Hovland made a 30-footer for birdie on the last hole to beat Josh Teater. In December, he made a 12-footer in Mexico to best Aaron Wise.

Even the disarray imposed on the tour schedule could not push Hovland off-path. He bought an anonymous McMansion in Stillwater, halfway between the Oklahoma State campus and Karsten Creek, the Cowboys’ home course, and did pretty much what he has done since he was a 12-year-old swing nerd who had 19 hours of daily Norwegian winter darkness to fill. He watched movies, listened to music and devoured countless hours of online golf instruction and treated his swing like a set of Legos, tinkering, adding and subtracting while using the directions as a reference, not a blueprint.