NEW PROVIDENCE, BAHAMAS | Viktor Hovland is making it a habit. For the second straight year, he won the Hero World Challenge. And like last year, he denied another player from becoming the new world No. 1.
On Sunday at a sun-drenched Albany course, Hovland was involved in late drama at the 20-man unofficial PGA Tour event. He muscled his second shot from an uphill lie in the rough on the tough par-4 closing hole into the water left of the green while two strokes ahead of Scottie Scheffler. The putter came to his rescue once again as he canned a 25-foot bogey putt.
Scheffler could not seize the opportunity. He ended up with a bogey after a poor second shot from the middle of the fairway flared right and left him with a difficult up-and-down for par.
It was a costly miss for the American world No. 2, who would have reclaimed the No. 1 position that he held for 30 weeks this year with a victory. In 2021, Hovland had made up for a six-shot deficit against Collin Morikawa, with whom he shared a house last year as well as this week. A victory by Morikawa would have propelled the American to No. 1 for the first time in his career.
Scheffler started well, going 4-under through six holes, and caught up with Hovland, who began the final round with a three-shot lead. But Scheffler, the reigning Masters champion, slightly pulled his drive on the ninth hole into the native bushes and paid the price with a double bogey. Hovland had increased his lead by five shots at one stage, before Scheffler reeled him within sight via three straight birdies late in the back nine. However, the bogey on the 18th cost him dearly.
The key to victory for Hovland, a 25-year-old Norwegian, was his putter, which he used to lethal effect, especially during the weekend. On Saturday, he shot 8-under 64 in which he needed just 23 putts. He used only 24 putts in a final-round 69 for a 16-under 272 total. In addition to the 25-foot game-winner on the final hole, Hovland holed a 20-foot birdie putt on No. 6 and a 15-footer for birdie at the 15th, plus three shorter birdie putts.
“It was frustrating the first two days because I did not putt very well,†said Hovland, who improved three places, to No. 9, in the Official World Golf Ranking. “I missed a lot of short putts, but it was very hard to putt in the 30 mile-an-hour wind. The greens are really fast and they’re pretty grainy, so you have to hit those putts very softly, and there’s so much that can happen with the wind.
“The last two days, it’s been still windy but comparatively calm, and I was just able to rely on my feet a lot more (with AimPoint technique). As soon as you see a couple putts go in, it’s just easy to get confidence from that. The difference on the first couple days was I could still miss the putts, even if they were 2½ feet, just because of the wind. It made you feel so uncomfortable.â€
The weekend performance on the greens validated the point that Hovland was trying to make early in the week. He thought that he was putting a lot better using AimPoint to read the greens.
“It’s trying to break putting into categories,†Hovland said of the green-reading technique. “You’ve got to start the ball on line, you’ve got to have good speed control and then you’ve got to have good green reading. I always felt like I’ve started the ball really well on line and I’ve had pretty decent speed, but I would have weeks where I would miss 6-footers because I just wasn’t reading it right.
“When I first started working with my coach, Jeff Smith, he came to Karsten Creek (in Stillwater, Oklahoma, where Hovland attended college at Oklahoma State) where I practice, and we went out and played a few holes. He watched me putt and I would misread 15-footers by probably a foot, and it was at a golf course I play on every single day when I’m home. I should know the greens.
“He had some experience with AimPoint, and he basically said you need to really learn this. The rest of the nine holes, he just read the greens for me, told me where to aim, and I just started making everything. So that really kind of clicked in my head that I need to master this. Obviously, it’s not a perfect system. I’m not going to make every single putt, but it gives me a framework to where I can trust that read, and most of the time it’s going to be fairly close.â€
Hovland will pack his clubs for a couple of weeks for the Christmas break and start preparing for 2023. He is the defending champion for the DP World Tour’s Dubai Desert Classic on Jan. 26-29, but said he wasn’t sure whether he would travel to the Middle East given how dense his playing schedule will be next year. The top stars on the PGA Tour are expected to play with almost 20 mandatory events next year (13 “elevated†events and three regular tournaments, apart from the four majors).
Joy Chakravarty
