A biography for Viktor Hovlandhasn’t been written yet.
“Obviously the LIV is bringing in a lot of money to the sport and there's a lot of competition, which I think is good. But it seems to have been a response from the PGA Tour's side, that OK, we're going to - it's just more talk about the money and I think that's a little bit sad.”
“What do you think happens after we die? We don't know. The establishment will say, 'Your neurons will stop firing. Your body will rot.' OK, that's one explanation but, if you look at our ancestors, there's a huge culture that goes into preparing for the afterlife. Were they just idiots or were they onto something? I'm just curious to find out.”
“I was good and I had a pretty golf swing... but I was never the best or anything. I looked up to the guys around me - my peers - they were way better than me, way more talented. They looked prettier. But what I did was I got better every single year.”
“My ball striking was already good when I turned pro, so there wasn't a whole lot that I could really necessarily improve on.”
“You need the competition with 150 players and a cut and if you don't play well enough, you're out. There is something about it that makes your game a little sharper.”
“When you turn pro and start traveling, you don't see a lot of the same people you used to. You're used to your college teammates and the college coaches, and now everything's kind of on your own.”
“I'm in charge of my own business. I'm the CEO of Viktor Hovland Golfing Enterprise. And that includes hiring people who help me with my golf swing.”
“I don't vary my ball flight much depending on the situation. I think harnessing one shot and becoming good at that is the smarter thing to do.”
“I try to keep an open mind. But at the same time, I'm pretty stubborn to change.”
“Out on Tour, it's a lot of big cities, and when you're on the course it can be like a circus.”
“Some of my friends, they were the best, or prodigies, at the time, their development kind of stopped a few years later. Whereas I just kept practicing, kept working on things, and I got a little better every single year.”
“Me and a buddy of mine would make up this saying, 'Just land it on the green and keep it on the green.' We set the bar really low when we had a chip.”
“Obviously I went to Oklahoma State, so I think an orange would still look good underneath the green jacket.”
“I just suck at chipping.”
“It's nice to have kind of moments like that where you just kind of don't do anything and relax, but I try not to get too caught up in the moment either. It's always, you know, think about the processes, trying to get better, and, yeah, enjoy the process.”
“I'm skeptical of buzzwords - phrases like 'restrict your swing' or 'stay on plane' - unless there's some deeper context to it.”
“To make it very simplified, my sternum had gotten too far ahead, and my pelvis had been moving too far back. My sternum was almost past my pelvis in the swing - and it should be the opposite way. Watch a young Tiger Woods or Jack Nicklaus, and it's that reverse-C finish. I was almost doing the opposite, and it's hard to hit cuts doing that.”
“I guess this is going pretty deep, but in poker most of the best players in the world try to play GTO: game theory optimal. And it almost becomes, like, where everyone does the same, or tries to become a robot. But it's not possible for a human to play exactly GTO, so there's gonna be deviations from that strategy.”
“There's a lot of take from poker and talk about with golf as well, because a lot of it is math and kind of stats.”
“You can't just willfully agree with whatever someone is telling you. You have to ask some questions and say, Hang on, is that right or is it not right? And if I'm wrong, well, I want to know how I'm wrong so I can avoid that mistake in the future.”