Hovland Brilliantly Ends Near Two-Year Winless Drought With Valspar Championship Triumph

6 months ago by Comments Off on Hovland Brilliantly Ends Near Two-Year Winless Drought With Valspar Championship Triumph

Viktor Hovland has brilliantly ended a near two-year winless run along with missing the halfway cut in last three events, returning to the winner’s circle in brilliantly capturing the Valspar Championship on the Innisbrook Resort course near Tampa.

Hovland tamed the famed Copperhead course, posting a closing 67 to win by a shot at 11-under from crowd favourite Justin Thomas.

Hovland set-up victory with birdies at the 14th, 16th and 17th holes to lead by two and despite a bogey at the last it was good enough to hold off Thomas who only just made the cut but then put himself in strong position thanks to weekend scores of 65 and 66 for his 10-under tally.

Hovland has not won since August 2023 in capturing the Tour Championship while this year, and in particular, he’s simply struggled to find that form that has made him a winner of now of seven PGA Tour titles, two DP World Tour wins and also a pair of Tiger Woods Hero World Challenge victories.

The proud Norwegian arrived at the Innisbrook Resort having contested six 2025 events on both the DP World Tour and PGA Tour but  missing the halfway cut in four including the last three ahead of the Valspar.

The first of those weekends off was at January’s Hero Dubai Desert Classic and where Hovland seemed to be the first player on the range in the morning and the last to leave in the evening, trying to find that key to improvement.

Now Hovland has turned around his disappointing downturn in form in the best manner possible with victory, earning himself also a cool $1.56m first prize cheque.

As well, success could not be more timely with the Masters, and an event where he finished a best of T7th in 2023, now just three weeks away.

“It’s still kind of sinking in,” said Hovland.

“I think when JT (Thomas) made a birdie there on 15 and he was three shots ahead, I still just felt really calm and I wasn’t really stressed.

“I just hit good shots and made some putts and it was awesome.”

Hovland addressed his downturn in form that had also seen him make five coaching changes as he slumped from fourth to 19th in the world.

“I know there some bad (shots) creeping in, but somehow this week I was just able to hit the good shots that I can a lot more often than I have been,” he said.

“It’s unbelievable to see that I could win because I honestly did not believe that I could do it this week.”

And European Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald will be chuffed as Hovland’s victory is a fifth of 13 PGA Tour events this year by members of the winning 2023 European Ryder Cup side and also a sixth by European-born players after Belguim’s Thomas Detry won the Phoenix Open.

 



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