Viktor Hovland found himself losing nearly six strokes off the tee across eight measured rounds in early 2026. This, as the Tour’s one of the most explosive ball-strikers, did not sit right. The driver had become a liability. To resolve the hiccup, Hovland turned to an unusual solution: inflatable pool floaties, and now we know exactly why.

“My problem’s been that I’ve been pulling the arms so hard, and back in the day, I used to have way more space around my arms,” he said at the Genesis Invitational press conference on February 19. “So, if I had something in the way, I was hoping that was going to make it easier to get the arms out and away from the body. It did help, for sure. Low-key called myself a genius for coming up with it.”

Hovland came up with the idea during the second round of the WM Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale. Hovland instructed his caddie, Shay Knight, to leave the course and purchase inflatable pool floaties from a nearby Walmart. He practiced with them on the range. His arms were collapsing inward, destroying the width his high-coil, power-fade swing demands to stay on path. The floaties created a physical barrier, and the width was restored. He finished T-10 at the WM Phoenix Open, gaining over four strokes on approach to rank fifth in the field that week.

But feel-based training aids rarely transfer cleanly from range to course. So at Riviera, Hovland opted for a resistance band. He pushed against the tension during his range session before Round 1 of the $20 million Genesis Invitational, and something clicked in a way the floaties hadn’t fully delivered.

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“The band really, because it forces your body to push against the tension, and then when you take it away, it’s like, ‘Wow, that’s what it’s supposed to feel like,'” Hovland said. “We’re not quite all there yet, even though this is a great round of golf, but that was a huge step in the right direction.”

He shot 69 in the first round at Riviera and finished at T-12. He gained 2.4 strokes tee-to-green per DataGolf, ranking seventh in the field. The driver held up. He hit the fairways and found the greens. With this, his four-start Riviera streak, never outside the top 20, remained intact.

At Valspar last year, Hovland won while admitting he honestly did not believe he could win that week. He grinded through what he called “disgusting” shots and tinkered through chaos until something held. The resistance band at Riviera was the latest iteration of that same process.

Feel-based training aids have always been part of professional golf. They came before launch monitors, TrackMan, and video analysis. And Hovland is not alone in reaching for it.

Viktor Hovland’s pool floaties and the PGA Tour’s feel-based training secret

Nick Faldo used arm-barrier drills long before Hovland picked up a floatie at Walmart. The Orange Whip, a simple weighted shaft, has been the top teaching aid for years, according to PGA and LPGA pros. All these tools have one thing in common: they make the right move obvious and the wrong move impossible to miss.

Scottie Scheffler, the world No. 1, refuses to warm up without a $13 molded rubber training grip on a 7-iron, the same grip he brought to the 2024 US PGA Championship. Tactile consistency over technical instruction.

Nelly Korda wore a pool floatie on her trail arm as an LPGA rookie in 2017, using it to prevent backswing collapse. The towel-under-the-armpit drill, popularized by Ben Hogan, still appears on Tour ranges every week.

Hovland’s viral moment was not a shortcut. It showed how the best players actually train.

“The driver has really got to be figured out,” Hovland had said two weeks earlier. At Riviera, it showed early signs of being figured out. Not quite all there yet. But the direction was clear.