Photo by Keyur Khamar/PGA TOUR via Getty Images
Hovland was one of them most improved players in 2023, but has chosen to make a team change ahead of The Sentry.
Viktor Hovland is among the many PGA Tour pros making changes into the new year.
Ahead of The Sentry, news surfaced that he and his swing coach, Joe Mayo, are no longer working together, per Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis.
“Viktor Hovland is no longer working with his swing coach Joe Mayo,” Lewis wrote. “Hovland did not want to get into details regarding the split. Last year Viktor worked with Mayo to change his short game mechanics and improved 91 positions in strokes gained around the greens from 2022 to 2023.”
Viktor Hovland is no longer working with swing coach Joe Mayo. Hovland did not want to get into details regarding the split. Last year Viktor worked with Mayo to change his short game mechanics and improved 91 positions in strokes gained around the greens from 2022 to 2023.
— Todd Lewis (@ToddLewisGC) January 3, 2024
Arguably the biggest change in Hovland last season was his short game.
Following his iconic “I just suck at chipping” quote in 2020 after he won his first PGA Tour event, people knew Hovland’s weakness.
The duo began working together at the beginning of 2023, and slowly but surely, the 6-time PGA Tour winner started to show improvements.
His victory at the Memorial put him on everyone’s radar. It was his first big-time win and showed how much his short game was improved.
After that win at the Memorial, the lowest he finished was T29 at the Travelers. He finished tied for 25th at the Genesis Scottis Open and went T13 in consecutive events after that. Then, the Norwegian won back-to-back events culminating in his FedEx Cup win.
His momentum didn’t stop there as Hovland’s short game was on full display at the Ryder Cup. He and Ludvig Åberg historically destroyed Scottie Scheffler and Brooks Koepka, 9 and 7, helping Team Europe dominate the Americans to take back the Ryder Cup.
The 26-year-old took a long break after the Ryder Cup and returned to play at Tiger Woods’ Christmas event, The Hero World Challenge. Even though he signed for a 63 on Sunday to post the low score of the week and finish 10th, he wasn’t pleased. He is a self-proclaimed perfectionist, after all.
Now, he comes into the opening tournament of the 2024 PGA Tour season as arguably the best player in the world. That makes this separation that much more surprising. Mayo’s concepts seemed to click with how Hovland approaches golf.
If he were to win this week, Hovland would become just the fourth player in the past 15 years to win three straight PGA Tour starts. He would join Tiger Woods, who did it in 2008, Rory McIlroy in 2014 and Dustin Johnson, most recently in 2017.
However, with him and Mayo separating, could it spell trouble? Or is this move something that will help Hovland in the long run?
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.
