Viktor Hovland’s scorecard at Emirates Golf Club looked like a statement. It was clean, bold, and hard to ignore. A bogey-free 65 on a course he once conquered suggested a player finding his stride again. Yet beneath the numbers, there is a quieter story unfolding. It is a story that is less shaped by momentum and more by a lingering sense that something in his game still refuses to settle.

“Yeah, I know I played a wonderful round of golf today. Certainly no complaints about a bogey-free 65 out here. This place is no joke. Still doesn’t feel like I can stand on the tee and kind of swing for the fences, and swing loosely. It’s all very contrived and manufactured, and it happened to go straight today. If I get off the tee and in a decent position, I can really do some damage,” Hovland admitted. “But I really would like to be able to stand on the tee box and swing hard and know that the ball is going to go fairly straight.”

Viktor Hovland had a breakout 2023 season. Although he last won on the DP World Tour in 2022 at the Dubai Desert Classic, he won 3 PGA Tour titles in 2023. This included the Memorial Tournament, the BMW Championship, and the Tour Championship. Besides that, he finished as a runner-up at the 2023 PGA Championship.

After the amazing 2023 run, the Norwegian chased more versatility by adding “draw pieces” to his swing. He later described this as a “poor decision” because it cost him control over his start lines. And this reflected in his game, too. He had won 2 DP World Tour titles and 6 PGA Tour events by 2023. But then, the 2023 BMW Championship winner went winless in 2024.

Hovland also went through a messy coaching carousel. He split with Joe Mayo and then reunited with him briefly before ultimately parting ways at the end of 2024. Viktor Hovland then turned to highly rated instructor TJ Yeaton ahead of the 2025 season. The technical tinkering left him in what he called a “rut.” He could no longer stand over the ball and know where it was going, and that contributed to a steep slide in the rankings and a visible dip in confidence.

While he made a poor decision after 2023, his decision to work with Yeaton proved somewhat beneficial for the Norwegian star. The 2025 season was seemingly better for him. Although he missed the cut at the Dubai Desert Classic in 2025, he ended the season on the right note with a T5 at the BMW Championship and a T6 at the DP World India Championship. On the PGA Tour, he won the 2025 Valspar Championship and finished in the top-10 in 2 other events.

Viktor Hovland has carried the momentum he gained in 2025 into this season. He won the Dubai Desert Classic in 2022 but missed the cut in the same event in 2024 and 2025. However, this time, he is tied for the 3rd place with a score of 9-under 207, only behind Patrick Reed and David Puig. On Saturday, January 24, he fired a round of 7-under 65, which helped him close the margin with Reed.

The numbers show that Viktor Hovland is back on track. However, the 2025 Valspar Championship winner says otherwise. He admitted that the same problem of not being able to know if the ball will go straight or not still haunts him.

That tension between what Hovland can produce on the card and what he still feels in his swing echoes a much longer story about how he learned the game in the first place.

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Viktor Hovland on growing up without a blueprint

During a November 2025 appearance on the Flag Hunters Podcast, Hovland opened up about how different his developmental path was compared to American stars he now battles week after week. Unlike the American stars, he didn’t have many golf clubs in Norway, where the PGA Tour professionals used to play. Thus, the exposure of even watching professionals play was lacking.

On the other hand, golfers like Scottie Scheffler, Jordan Spieth, and Justin Thomas grew up surrounded by tour-level reference points. Hovland said Norway offered nothing close to that kind of benchmark.

“You get to kind of see what the best players are doing. But we have no reference or no context growing up in Norway,” the 2025 Ryder Cup team member said.

He mentioned that even the U.S. juniors could watch elite golfers up close at major clubs. This helps them study their habits and measure their own game. Since there was no such exposure in Norway, he didn’t have a clear picture of what elite golf really looked like.

That gap shaped his early mindset on tour. Viktor Hovland admitted there was a moment when it finally clicked that winning was not about chasing one perfect week, but about building a game that could hold up over time. His late start in the sport only added to the challenge. Notably, he did not pick up a club until age 11. This left the Norwegian star years behind peers in the United States who had been in junior systems since childhood.

Those early years shaped how Viktor Hovland judges his own progress today. Even when the leaderboard says he is back among the contenders, he still lacks confidence. The scores at Emirates may point toward resurgence, but for him, the real milestone remains the moment when the swing finally feels as natural and trustworthy as the path that once led him there.