‘I made a poor decision’: Viktor Hovland opens up about swing struggles

Viktor Hovland longs for a time when golf will feel effortless again. It did for the first four years of his PGA TOUR career when he won six times – including the FedExCup – and could stand over the ball and know where it would start and where it would finish. Those days are, for now, gone. And they have been for the better part of a year.

Hovland’s 2024 was the worst season of his career. He failed to win for the first time, carded a career-low in top 10s and spent much of the year searching for solutions, swapping out coaches and diving down different rabbit holes. He gave glimpses into his swing issues during that time but spoke as candidly as ever on Wednesday about his struggles.

“I think a lot of people have it maybe misconstrued a little bit that I made a conscious decision to go down this rabbit hole,” Hovland said during a pre-tournament press conference at the DP World Tour’s Dubai Desert Classic. “I think it’s just your golf swing is an ever-evolving organism, and every week you’re out here playing, you have intentions and feels that would seem relatively innocuous. But you keep those intentions and feels in there, and then might morph into something else.

“It’s just a process of, you know, sh-t happens,” Hovland added. “I made a poor decision. That’s the game of golf for you. It’s hard to play golf 20 years great.”

What was that poor decision? After his breakout 2023 season, in which he amassed three victories, including back-to-back FedExCup Playoffs events at the BMW Championship and TOUR Championship, Hovland set out to add more “draw pieces” to his swing. He had always been a cutter of the ball, but he wanted to see the ball cut less and add more versatility to his game. But as he introduced more draw elements in his swing, he lost some control. He couldn’t stand over the ball and know exactly where it was going. More times than not, it was hooking left when he wasn’t expecting it.

Hovland has always prided himself in his ability to evolve and optimize. It was part of the reason he got onto the PGA TOUR, scouring the internet for swing tips. He found his old coach Joe Mayo through Instagram and Hovland had a career season while working with him. By and large, every change he had ever made to his swing worked. So why would this time be different?

“I’ve always tried to push myself, and even when it was really good, I kept on pushing it, and maybe setting too high expectations because maybe I didn’t realize how good it was or I thought it could continue to get better and better and better,” Hovland said. For the most part of my career, every decision that I’ve made to change something up in order to play better, it has worked.”

Hovland is now hoping to piece together some of the key elements of his old swing into his current game. He split with Mayo for a second time late last year and is now working with TJ Yeaton, a Nashville-based instructor. The two have been seen working late into the night in Dubai this week, working through the kinks of Hovland’s swing.

The Norweigan hopes there’s a day coming soon when those late-night range sessions will be no more.

“I’d like to just have it figured out and go home and lay on the couch and just know that my ball is going to go pretty straight,” Hovland said. “When you’re trying to get back to old patterns, you’ve got to work on it. It doesn’t happen on its own. So you’ve got to put some extra work in.”