Viktor Hovland firing on all cylinders entering Bay Hill

ORLANDO, Fla. – Viktor Hovland, in poker parlance, is a man on a heater. A runner-up on Sunday two hours downstate at the World Golf Championships-Workday Championship at The Concession followed a tie for fifth at The Genesis Invitational, a runner-up showing at the Farmers Insurance Open, a win at the Mayakoba Golf Classic in December … well, you get the picture. If there’s anybody happier than Hovland as he readies to tee it up at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard on Thursday, it could only be his banker.

Hovland, 23, is one of a handful of young guns who turned pro in 2019 poised to become part of the PGA TOUR’s Generation Next. Frankly, between Hovland, Collin Morikawa (last week’s WGC-Workday champion) and Matthew Wolff, it’s more like Generation Now. (Brandon Wu, who tied for seventh at last week’s Puerto Rico Open; Will Gordon (T3 at the 2020 Travelers Championship); and Justin Suh, progressing nicely through developmental tours, all hope to jump in soon.)

Hovland won the 2020 Puerto Rico Open in his 12th start as a professional, which, as crazy as it sounds, lagged behind Morikawa and Wolff, who’d already won by then. Hovland has the edge this season in the FedExCup standings (he ranks second, behind Patrick Cantlay), and in 54 weeks has risen from 100th in the world to 13th. Hovland has six finishes of T6 or better in his last seven worldwide starts, and 20 of his last 28 rounds have been in the 60s. Stand back. He is blowtorch hot.

As for growth? Hovland sees it everywhere he looks. His comfort level, his familiarity with TOUR courses – this week marks his third visit to Bay Hill – and his aggressive, green-light attitude are only a small part of something bigger.

“I feel like I've really changed as a player now compared to, let's say, six months ago,” Hovland said. “Every single area of my game is, I would say, very, very different.

“I'm hitting it further. I'm not curving it as much left-to-right as I used to off the tee. I can hit my irons higher. I'm swinging it a little faster, so that helps out of the rough. My short game is better, I'm using more bounce, I can hit more shots. And putting, I can actually read putts consistently. Before it was just a guess.”

Hovland is the first PGA TOUR winner from Norway. Granted, Norway can be a fabulous place to cross-country ski, but it’s certainly no year-round golf hotbed. Viktor’s dad, Harald Hovland, was an engineer who, on work assignment in St. Louis years ago, decided to pull off the highway to stop in at a driving range and give the game a go.

Viktor was hitting balls by age 4. On colder days in Oslo, he would practice in a converted airplane hanger, dome-like, hitting balls into a net strung about 70 yards off the tee. He looked up to fellow future PGA TOUR professional Kristoffer Ventura, who is three years older and ventured from Norway to Oklahoma State, where Viktor eventually would join him on the Cowboys’ 2018 NCAA national championship squad. Hovland won the U.S. Amateur at Pebble Beach later that summer and was low amateur at the Masters and U.S. Open in 2019. Who knew how far the kid in the dome could go?

“I mean, I've always just kind of dreamt of just, nothing really specific, just kind of I want to play golf for a living,” said Hovland, who revered watching the creativity of players such as Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia. “I would love to just wake up and play golf every single day. I think that was kind of the dream.”

Hovland seemingly has a smile that would survive a tax audit, and manages to stay upbeat even in the game’s tougher moments. Friday, Hovland stumbled to a quadruple-bogey 8 on his final hole of his second round (No. 9) at Concession – careening from two shots off the lead to six back. He had played his first 17 holes in 7 under. His score squashed, he didn’t slam the bag and storm off, but hung around and talked to reporters, reasoning that he never should have hit his second shot into palmetto bushes beyond the green.

Hovland tucked it away as a lesson learned, and played solidly enough on the weekend (66-67) to climb back into contention and tie for second. In a small window of time, the Norwegian who learned to speak English watching American documentaries abroad has accumulated many lessons. It’s all about growth.

Paul Azinger said Hovland’s level demeanor reminds him of Texan Tom Kite, who always appeared unflappable. “He’s Kite with a better smile,” Azinger joked at last year’s The Honda Classic. “Nothing ever bothered Kite that much. It doesn’t look like anything bothers Viktor Hovland, and he smiles. He 'Matt Kuchars' it to death.”

Hovland tied for 42nd at Arnie’s Place a year ago, shooting 77 on Sunday, when “the greens started turning purple. I mean, it’s just a beast of a golf course, especially with so much water out there.”

Given his torrid form, Hovland should be just fine. Those wild aspirations he once harbored to wake up and play golf every day, those reels are spinning in real-time. Viktor Hovland, quadruples and all, is living the dream.