11th hole on Sunday, leading to a triple bogey and laying bare the realisation he shared with everybody in the interview after saving the day with his putter. “I suck at chipping,” he said, with his widest trademark smile. “That’s something I know I’m going to have to improve if I want to play my best at this level.” For Bratton, Hovland’s openness and willing- ness to judge his game unemotionally make him a virtual unicorn in professional golf. “I love his honesty – and the confidence to be honest. To say, ‘I suck at chipping’? No tour player will make him- self that vulnerable,” says Bratton, who caddied for Hovland at the 2018 US Amateur and 2019 Masters and US Open. “The first European Tour event Vik- tor played in, he did that double-pump, top-of-the- backswing thing he does in a real round. My phone blew up with people sending me clips of it, so I called him and said, ‘What are you doing? When did you start that?’ He said, ‘This morning.’ He did it as a drill, and it felt good, so he put it in. It was the same thing at the US Open. He had pretty much the best driving week anybody has ever had. The next week, in Hartford, he was trying the double- pump thing on a couple of holes. The confidence to do that shows who he is.” Hovland addressed his short-game shortcoming head-on. He worked early in tournament weeks with legendary coach Peter Cowen – who helped Koepka and Gary Woodland with their short games – on using the bounce on his wedges more effec- tively. By sliding the club instead of digging it, Hovland could control the loft on his shots more precisely, and the club was less prone to dig. The work – and the enforced downtime during Covid – gave Hovland time he says was reminiscent of when he was 12 years old, when it was all about playing golf for fun and looking for answers online. The hunt led him to some of the online material created by Jeff Smith, a Las Vegas-based instructor who works with several tour players, such as South African-born Aaron Wise and Patrick Rodgers. Smith and Hovland had mutual friends, so Hov-
at Oklahoma State, in 2017, his variables were varying, and he was having trouble digesting the remote coaching he was getting from Denny Lu- cas, a Florida-based coach he had found through Instagram. Hovland’s ball flight had flattened to where he was having trouble holding greens with longer clubs. Legendary OSU coach Mike Holder might have sent Bratton the player out to hit a few more buckets of practice balls during Bratton’s All-American senior year in 1995, but Bratton the coach had to take a 21st-century approach. “We felt like he wasn’t understanding something the coach was telling him remotely,” Bratton says. “Over the Thanksgiving break, he went to see the coach in Jupiter. That helped him get it, and when he came back, he had all this height. He built momentum from there and really hasn’t looked back. I just love the way he plays – confident, not afraid.”
ACCURACY STARTS AT ADDRESS “One of my tendencies is to aim too far right, and that’s when I get into trouble off the tee. My stock shot is a little fade. But when I’m lined up right of my target (photo, near left), my instinct is to push my hand path out to make that changes my swing path and makes it harder to produce a quality fade. To avoid that, I make sure my shoulders and hips are in line with my target (far left). Don’t ignore the my swing go more left. But
IMMEDIATE SUCCESS ON TOUR
That fear element – or the lack of it – was what made players like Hovland, Wolff, Morikawa and Bryson DeChambeau so different. They came on tour ready to win because they had seen their peers do it. DeChambeau was runner-up in the 2015 Aus- tralian Masters as an amateur and tied for fourth in Hilton Head in his 2016 professional debut. Wolff won the 2019 NCAA individual champion- ship in May and on the PGA Tour at the 3M Open in July. The next month, in starts four, five and six, Morikawa went T-2, T-4 and won the Barracuda Championship. Hovland finished 12th as an amateur in the 2019 US Open at Pebble Beach and was a millionaire be- fore he pegged it for the first time as a professional the next week, at the 2019 Travelers Champion- ship, thanks to an equipment deal with Ping. “Look at what Wolff did over those few weeks in 2019,” Bratton says. “Turning pro didn’t make him any better or make him a different player. He was capable as an amateur. It’s a matter of telling a player the truth about the skill set you need to play at a given level, establishing an environment where they can do that, and then free them to un- derstand for themselves that they can win.” The step into professional golf only reinforced the same drive in Hovland that had transformed his body from chunky to chiselled and validated the personal experiments he conducts on his swing. “There are always things to improve, and I have always liked to work,” Hovland says. “But I think a strength for me is the ability to say, Yeah, something might be a valuable piece of informa- tion for somebody, but it’s not necessarily for me. I’m not vulnerable to going to somebody and just giving my brain to them. I want to learn things for myself.” Hovland’s experience winning for the first time in Puerto Rico paid in more ways than just the $540 000 cheque. He dumped two chips on the
importance of checking your alignment.”
IN THE SUMMER, IT STAYS LIGHT IN NORWAY UNTIL 10.30, AND EVEN THEN, VIKTOR’S PARENTS SPENT A LOT OF TIME WAITING IN THE PARKING LOT FOR HIM TO FINISH.
GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA 57
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2025
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