Reigning FedEx Cup champion Viktor Hovland has been relatively quiet in 2024 as he prepares for the start of his fifth Masters Tournament. After winning the FedEx Cup last year and playing the best golf of his career, Hovland was surprisingly looking for a change.
Ahead of The Sentry in January, Hovland confirmed he had parted ways with swing coach Joe Mayo.
Since that change, it has been a journey of ups and downs.
In March, Hovland announced that former PGA Tour member Grant Waite would be on his team at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. new swing coach.
But when he appeared before the media at Augusta National on Tuesday, it wasn’t Waite who was next to him, but Dana Dahlquist.
“We’re still looking for input, but we feel like we’re on a good trajectory right now, so let’s see where it goes,” Hovland said Tuesday. “That’s one of them. I played great golf last year and I’m not trying to change my golf swing.”
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Mr. Dahlquist and Mr. Hovland are no strangers. They worked together in 2020, when Hovland was still new to touring.
The 26-year-old confirmed that Waite no longer works with him. Changed swing coaching againaccording to Eurosport’s Espen Braker.
The former Oklahoma State Cowboy apparently sent Dahlquist a video of his swing, which sparked a reunion.
“I liked that he thought that was the best strategy to bring back much of the movement back then,” Hovland told Breaker. “We thought it made a lot of sense, so we’re collaborating a little bit now, and then we’ll see what happens.”
After making the playoffs last year, Hovland took an extended vacation and never picked up a golf club.
Golf can be demanding, and swings can be based on how the club feels in the player’s hands rather than on technique. So when he started practicing again, things felt different.
“I had to find a way to get back to where I thought I could play my best golf,” he explained in the media room. “Even at the end of last year, I felt like I was playing great, but I got a lot out of my play and I didn’t feel like it was necessarily sustainable. But I didn’t consciously go into the game and say, “Hey, we’re going to change everything.”
Hovland is ready to stabilize his game, which is another reason he chose to use Dahlquist over Waite.
“There was a little bit of back and forth. It was hard to see the path forward, what the answer was, what exactly we needed to do,” Hovland explained. “I feel like now I’ve decided, ‘This is the right thing, this is what I’m going to do.’ I’ve got to keep doing it. So let’s see. I feel like things are going in the right direction. , it was more difficult than we had hoped.”
Hovland finished tied for seventh at last year’s Masters, but shot a 65 on Thursday to take the lead. He continued to compete, but never quite settled.
Only time will tell if this switch will pay dividends.
He will play on days one and two of the 88th Masters alongside current U.S. Open champion Windham Clark and former British Open champion Cameron Smith. The trio will tee off Thursday at 10:54 a.m. ET and Friday at 2 p.m.
Savannah Lee Richardson is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through.If you want to know more about golf, please follow us. @_PlayingThrough On all major social platforms. You can also follow her on Twitter @SportsGirls and Instagram @savannah_leigh_sports.
