Photo by Warren Little/Getty Images
Entering The Masters, Hovland made another coaching change as he reunited with someone who helped him early in his pro career.
Reigning FedEx Cup champion Viktor Hovland has been relatively quiet in 2024 as he prepares for his fifth Masters Tournament start. After winning the FedEx Cup championship last year and playing some of the best golf of his career, Hovland surprisingly wanted a change.
Ahead of The Sentry in January, Hovland confirmed he parted ways with swing coach Joe Mayo.
Since that change, it’s been an up-and-down journey.
In March, Hovland announced at the Arnold Palmer Invitational that Grant Waite, a former PGA Tour member, was his new swing coach.
However, when he appeared before the media at Augusta National Tuesday, it wasn’t Waite beside him but Dana Dahlquist.
“I’m still kind of looking for some opinions out there, but I feel like I’m on a good track right now and we’ll see where that takes us,” Hovland said Tuesday. “It’s one of those things. I was playing great golf last year, but it’s not like I’m trying to change my golf swing.”
Photo by Brian Spurlock/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Dahlquist and Hovland aren’t strangers; they worked together when Hovland was still new on Tour in 2020.
The 26-year-old confirmed that Waite is no longer working with him and has made another swing coaching change, per Espen Blaker of Eurosport.
The former Oklahoma State Cowboy apparently sent Dahlquist some videos of his swing, which helped spark the reunion.
“I liked what he thought was the best strategy to get back to a lot of that movement from that time,” Hovland said to Blaker. “I thought it made a lot of sense, and so we’ve been working together a bit now. Then we’ll see how it goes.”
After his playoff run last year, Hovland took an extended break where he didn’t pick up a golf club.
Golf can be demanding, and a swing can be based on how a club feels in a player’s hands instead of technicalities. So, when he started practicing again, things felt different.
“I had to find my way back to where I think I’m going to play my best golf,” he explained in the media room. “Even at the end of the last year, I still felt like, yeah, I was playing great, but I got a lot out of my game, and it didn’t necessarily feel sustainable. But it’s not like I consciously went in and said, hey, we’re going to change everything up.”
Hovland is ready for stability in his game, another reason he decided to roll with Dahlquist over Waite.
“There has been a bit too much back-and-forth. It has been difficult to see the way forward, what exactly is the answer, and what exactly I need to do,” Hovland explained. “I feel that now I’ve decided that ‘this is right, this works.’ I have to get on with it. Then we’ll see how it goes. I feel things are going in the right direction, but it has been more difficult than we would have liked.”
Hovland finished tied for seventh in last year’s Masters but led after a 65 on Thursday. He kept himself in contention but didn’t quite close.
Only time will tell if this switch pays dividends.
He will play alongside reigning U.S. Open winner Wyndham Clark and former Open champion Cameron Smith on Days 1 and 2 of the 88th Masters. This trio tees off at 10:54 a.m. ET on Thursday and 2 p.m. on Friday.
Savannah Leigh Richardson is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. For more golf coverage, be sure to follow us @_PlayingThrough on all major social platforms. You can also follow her on Twitter @SportsGirlSL and Instagram @savannah_leigh_sports.
