Viktor Hovland has faced a rough 2024 season, particularly considering that his 2023 was his best year as a professional. It had gotten so bad, in fact, the Norwegian considered not even playing in this week's PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club.
Speaking to Sirius XM after Saturday's third round in Kentucky, Hovland admitted that he had given serious consideration to pulling out of competing in the second men's major of the year.
"I was almost considering pulling out of this event," Hovland said. "Just things didn't feel very good, and when they don't feel good, it's like what's the point of playing? Like, I'd rather just go and work on it. But yeah, we're here now."
"I was almost considering pulling out of this event."
Good thing he didn't! After a 5-under 66 on Saturday, Viktor Hovland is just two shots back of the leaders at the PGA Championship entering the final round.@JasonSobelGolf | @PGAChampionship pic.twitter.com/TdDiAcGTKu
— SiriusXM PGA Championship Radio (@SiriusXMPGATOUR) May 19, 2024
Hovland won three times on the PGA Tour in 2023, including the Memorial Tournament in a playoff over Denny McCarthy, and then he won the final two FedEx Cup playoff events of the year at the BMW Championship and the Tour Championship. By winning at East Lake in the Tour Championship, Hovland won the FedEx Cup as well.
Hovland ended 2023 at fourth in the Official World Golf Ranking, but he's dropped to seventh in the ranking on the back of a season in which he has zero top-15 finishes and his best effort in seven starts is a T-19 at The Genesis Invitational in February.
It has been a tumultuous season for Hovland, as he has been moving from instructor to instructor. Hovland started working again working with coach Dana Dahlquist at the Masters, as he stopped working with Grant Waite. Waite was hired after Hovland decided to move on from Joe Mayo. Then, ahead of this week, Hovland went back to Mayo.
"When I went to see Joe earlier in the week, we had dinner, and I said, you don't look very concerned, and he had kind of pinpointed a feel that as soon as I kind of kept working on that, it just got better immediately," Hovland said. "And I thought this was potentially going to be a little bit of a project and maybe take six, eight weeks before I would see kind of immediate improvement."
Now Hovland has a chance to his first career major on Sunday. What a week.
