Viktor Hovland has been struggling with his game for more than a year and a half. After his outstanding 2023 season, he tried to incorporate new elements into his swing with devastating results.
There is no doubt that he has made progress in resolving his issues, and Hovland just won the 2025 Valspar Championship to prove it. But even with his seventh PGA Tour trophy in his hand, Hovland said he is still not completely comfortable with his game.
The 27-year-old made an aside in his post-victory schedule to address golfers everywhere who are struggling with their game. His advice to them turned out to be more of a philosophical approach than a sporting one.
“I’d say, at the end of the day, when you’re struggling with something it’s just problems, and problems are usually a lack of information,” Hovland said. “So, I would encourage people to go out and seek more information and try it out for yourself, see if it improves, if it helps your problems.”
“And if it doesn’t, then you got to seek for more answers, and you keep going and keep going, and hopefully you got it figured out until the end.”
Viktor Hovland’s struggles with his game led to wide swings in his results in 2024. He tied for third at the PGA Championship and tied for second at the FedEx St. Jude Championship, but those were his only two top-10s in the 16 PGA Tour events he played.
The trend has worsened in 2025, considering he won the Valspar Championship after missing three cuts in a row, including a round of 80 at the Players Championship.
The Innisbrook Resort tournament is the first cut Hovland has really made this season, as he had only played the weekend in two no-cut events (The Sentry and AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am).
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But the seven-time PGA Tour winner is hopeful he is finally on the right track after start working with new coach Grant Waite.
“Grant is really smart. He’s looked at a lot of golf swings, he’s very knowledgeable, and he’s obviously played at the highest level himself. So I think that’s really cool to be working with a person like that,” Hovland said during the winner’s press conference about working with Waite.
“I really trust Grant,” he added, “because he can, he sees it and knows what kind of matchups need to be there for it to work. So, yeah, it was obviously a good first week together, so hopefully just build on that.”
The victory at the Valspar Championship moved Hovland up to 27th in the FedEx Cup standings and back into the top 10 of the world rankings (8th).
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