What Viktor Hovland is looking for in home course after making move to Palm Beach County

PONTE VEDRA BEACH — The newest member of Palm Beach County’s golf royalty will spend the upcoming weeks scouting the exclusive area clubs for a new home. Norway’s Viktor Hovland is a member of the Floridian in Hobe Sound. He will look at other venues, too, perhaps such spots as Jack Nicklaus’ Bear’s Club, Medalist, Seminole, Loxahatchee Club, Tequesta, Grove XXIII, and the new Nicklaus design Panther National.

After all, the No. 4 golfer in the world cannot have enough spots to work on his game. Hovland has made the move from Stillwater, Oklahoma, and currently is living in Palm Beach Gardens with friend and fellow Norwegian Kris Ventura, who plays on the Korn Ferry Tour. He isn’t necessarily seeking a home course where he could throw a tee in any direction and hit a fellow professional for a practice round. That is easy to do when 15 of the top 50 in the current ranking, and many more, have settled in the area.

“You’re only a text away from doing that,” Hovland said this week from The Players Championship, where his is 3-under for the tournament after shooting 71 at TPC Sawgrass Saturday. Instead, because he has not reached the high bar he has set for his game this year after winning last year’s FedEx Cup, and the $18 million bonus that comes with it, Hovland may seek solitude on the course, if there is such a thing in such a talent-rich area.

“I really like — especially now that I’m not playing as good as I would like — to just drive to the golf club, don’t talk to a single person, just get on the range and start hitting balls,” Hovland said. “Right now, I kind of need to find a place where I can work.”

Golf in South Florida: Hard to beat
Before we get to what his bugging Hovland about his game, a little background on why he joined fellow European Ryder Cup teammates Rory McIlroy, Matt Fitzpatrick, Shane Lowry and Cup team captain Luke Donald; along with Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay, Keegan Bradley, Cameron Young, Justin Thomas, Rickie Fowler and others who have migrated to the epicenter of golf.

Hovland, 26, has lived in Stillwater since 2016, the year he enrolled at Oklahoma State. While at OSU, Hovland won the U.S. Amateur and Ben Hogan Award as the best college player in the country. He kept a residence there after joining the PGA Tour in 2020 but has become tired of Oklahoma winters, which are not conducive to working on your game.

“There aren’t too many other places to beat when it comes to playing golf there,” Hovland said about his new home base. “You get some tough weather (in Oklahoma) that you have to show up and grind in, which sometimes you don’t quite get in South Florida, even though it’s certainly windy enough, so that gives you some challenge.

“For everyday practice, the facilities are always in great shape and the weather is always nice enough that you can practice putting and chipping and all that stuff. It’s just hard to beat.” Hovland has six career PGA Tour wins, half of those coming last season when he was in the top 10 in strokes gained total, tee-to-green, off-the-tee, total driving and scoring average.

All that added up to No. 3 on the money list with $14.1 million, plus the $18 million for winning the FedEx Cup playoff. “It’s nice to have, especially when we’re living in a world where money is more and more important,” he said, nailing what drives the rich and famous of Palm Beach County. “But it’s not something that drives the decision-making in my everyday life.”

What does drive him is good golf, and after the best year of his career, Hovland is nowhere close this year. The Players is Hovland’s fifth start this season. His best finish is T19 at Genesis. He finished T22 at Sentry, T58 at Pebble Beach and T36 last week at Arnold Palmer.

Hovland’s issue is with his driver. He is 138th in accuracy, hitting just 55.6% of fairways. He’s been better this week at 71.4% through the first three rounds. “I feel like I’ve gotten a little bit off track and I just need to start working in the right way again,” Hovland said. “I think things are going to fall into place a little bit more, but it’s not as simple as just kind of an overnight (fix) and then we’re back on it.

“This is kind of a little bit of a project, but gives me something to work on and I believe that when this starts to get easier and easier to do, it’s going to be right back to where we were.”