Viktor Hovland’s ‘still not great’ reaction to PGA Tour win sums him up after return to form

Viktor Hovland may have got himself back into the winner’s circle again at the Valspar Championship – but the Norwegian believes he still has plenty to work on with his swing

Just a week after shooting 80 around TPC Sawgrass at The Players Championship, Viktor Hovland is back in the PGA Tour winner’s circle after securing the Valspar Championship title on Sunday.

In typical Hovland fashion, however, the European star believes his swing still needs some work, despite getting his hands on a seventh PGA Tour crown. Following a recent tough patch – which included a nightmare finish at Sawgrass last week – Hovland has been open about his struggles.

And even after taking a seat in his winner’s press conference at Copperhead with his trophy next to him, he admitted his golf game is still not in the right place.

“Yeah, it’s still not great,” he said of his swing whilst laughing. Hovland went on to reveal that not much had changed in his game compared to recent weeks gone by, apart from his timing, which he believes helped him get over the line in Flordia over the weekend.

“I’m still hitting the same shots that I have been the whole year, really. But it’s just I was able to time it extremely well this week. It felt like every single good shot that I hit I just saved it really well. Because the club is just not in a great place for me coming down.

“It’s just not what it used to be. So I can’t really rely on my old feels anymore because the club is in a different spot and I have to change my release pattern to make that work.” Winning with an out-of-sync swing is a good problem to have for Hovland though.

“Incredibly, I did make it work and was able to win and I think that is something that I’m extremely proud of that I can show up at a PGA Tour event at one of the hardest golf courses we play all year and still win with not my best stuff,” he added. “So I think that’s really cool.

“That’s something that I’m extremely proud of, but at the same time it makes this game a lot more stressful than I think it should be.” The 27-year-old will no doubt be hoping things go to plan at the Masters next month, with the opening major championship of the season approaching.

Hovland however still believes he has plenty to work on if he is to repeat his Valspar Championship heroics at Augusta National. “Some of the shots that I’m hitting, it’s going to make it really difficult for me to be in contention at Augusta if I don’t rectify that problem, if I don’t see the improvements there,” Hovland claimed.

“It’s just a different golf course. You’re going to hit so many long irons into par-4s and you got to drive it pretty far because the fairways are pretty wide, it’s more of a bomber’s paradise versus this place it’s more just about being precise off the tee. So there’s still some things that I need to improve, but luckily we got two weeks and this is certainly nice to kind of have in the back of my mind leading up to Augusta.”