Viktor Hovland’s PGA Tour wins the result of the continuous search for perfection

It is right to say that Hovland’s success was among the least expected in a series of 2025 victories that will surely pay the European Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald. This was Oslo Star’s first victory from the 2023 tour championship.

So the fourth best player in the world was classified, someone who possessed a non -orthodox but highly effective oscillation and who had solved his problems around the greenery, apparently the only aspect that holds him down.

In short, it looked like a complete player, one ready to start winning Major and able to become a dominant figure. The finished article.

Still, there is no such thing in this game. The chase for better never ends and capriciously does not bring guarantees of improvement.

There are those who say “if it is not broken, don’t solve it”. Rory Mcilroy used that same phrase that spoke of aspects of his game in the wake of his recent play-off victory at the players’ championship.

But Hovland certainly does not fall into that category.

“I find strange that we are professional athletes and the people who want to improve are somehow considered: ‘Oh, he is a perfectionist, he is out of the perimeter in search of too much’,” he commented.

“This is what we do. We are here to improve and we are here to win the tournaments. So if you are not going to try to improve, what are you doing?”

This from a player who had the world at his feet, just to bring a series of swing changes while emulating the Watford FC approach to the assumption and dismissal of the coaches.

In the 574 days that followed the victory of the Tour Championship, Hovland collapsed from the first to 137 ° in the Fedex Cup of the Tour standings. He had lost the cut in his three previous releases, including the start of the players with a ruinous 80.

But the golfist believed that the constant arms, the search for perfection, was completely justified. “It’s not as he was invented things,” he said.

But what he made was that he needed to return to sensations and methods that had previously worked. “I have data that can show that what I was doing was objectively better than I am doing now.

“So why shouldn’t I try to go back to what I was doing?”

He reconnected with the former coach Grant Waite as he continued to reflect if he was worth heading to Tampa for the tournament he won in the end. “I was not very confident with my game that brought to this week,” Hovland admitted.

Among them they found an old atmosphere on the range last Tuesday. He had been lost during research for greater speed and his rediscovery was a block of vital construction.

“It’s really hard with himself,” said Hovland’s Caddy Shay Knight in Pattour.com. “But as soon as he finds a small sign or thought, he tends to take it on board, and happens very quickly.

“And it just seemed to click; I knew something special this week would happen with Swing thought.”

Hovland was far from perfect and still fear of losing long shots at the top and right, but had a base to make it competitive. “Incredibly, I made it work and I was able to win and I think it’s something I’m extremely proud of,” he smiled.

The game remains “more stressful than it should be”, but he feels to meet with Waite, a former tour player, will bring more success.

“He certainly put his heart and his soul to look at all the different golf swings I sent to him,” said Hovland.

“It is demanding because I have a truly unique scheme and it is unconventional and I would say that most coaches would probably want to make my swing more conventional and I hope you try to solve the problem.

“But that’s not how my golf swing works. And I really trust Grant, because he sees it and knows what kind of matchup they must be there to make it work.”

Hovland’s victory follows two PGA Tour wins for Mcilroy of Northern Ireland already this year and great victories for the Swedish Ludvig Abgg, the Austrian Sepp Straka and the Belgium Thomas Detry.

These results optimism of fuel for a successful Ryder Cup defense for Europe in Bethpage in September. But don’t let you transport.

In 2023 the Americans Scottie Scheffler, Max Homa and Sam Burns were publishing victories at this time of the year, while Brooks Koepka, Wyndham Clark and Brian Harman landed Major. But the US team was deeply beaten in Rome.

There are no guarantees in the sport that Rutella, who recommended a series of main winners, insists is not “a game of perfect”. So it should not be a surprise that even Hovland’s short -term hopes for the masters of next month are temperate.

“Some of the blows I am hitting, it will make me really difficult to be in the running of Augusta,” he admitted.

“You will hit so many long irons in equal holes and you have to guide it rather far away because the fairways are quite wide.

“It is more a paradise than a bomber against this place (copperhead in Tampa) where it is more than being precise from the shirt.

“So there are still some things that I have to improve, but luckily we have two weeks and this is certainly nice to have in the back of my mind that leads to Augusta.”