The Rise Of Viktor Hovland | A Short Golf Documentary

scandinavia a sub-region in northern europe home to rich history and strong cultural beliefs a part of the world which dominates in winter sports which leaves no surprise when a country with a population of 5 million has never had a winner on the european tour or the pga tour born in 1997 in norway's capital oslo victor hovland was a shy small timid child despite his bad genetics victor was always challenging what he had he took up taekwondo at an early age something very out of the normal for a young norwegian boy most were out playing football or into skiing but hovland proved height and weight is no barrier and became a black belt in the sport very quickly see that's a gift that victor had very early on he would become obsessed with things and really dive in deep into how to become the best in 2008 his father harold spent a year as a visiting engineer on a project in saint louis whilst he was there he'd bought some clubs to kill time at a practice range that was on his way to work when the year was up he brought a junior set of clubs back to norway for his son to try and by age 11 victor was hooked and never looked back taking the game up at quite a late age by today's standards victor felt as though he had time to make up and like every modern day millennial he grabbed his laptop and his addictive personality and dove straight in not only did vic get to a good level very quick because of youtube he taught himself in a second language in the summer in norway it would stay light until 10 30 at night and his parents would still find themselves waiting in the car park for him on the flip side though in winter there would be only six hours of daylight so this meant a lot of golf being played in his local indoor driving range and countless hours of web surfing and taking in as much knowledge as he could popular on tour at the time was the stack and tilt swing but being small hovland bypassed this method looking at longer players like dustin johnson for inspiration he knew that he needed length victor wasn't an idiot though he wouldn't digest every bit of information he scalped at the bits he needed and ignored the rest it was at faunavu indoor golf center where javi met coach of six years james mcgowan the australian had recent experience coaching pga tour players helping henrik bjornstadt become the first norwegian to make it to the pga tour mcgowan knew very early though that victor's work ethic was twice the amount of beyond stud and expected big things during the winter months hover would always be around hitting balls annoying mcgowan about the latest swing trends and pestering them about trackman numbers victor was constantly trying to improve but he became too obsessed with the swing and neglected his putting in 2013 and age 16 victor and the norwegian boys team were playing in the european boys team championship a haven for american golf scouts to get up close and personal to look at the top players coming out of europe cowboys coach alan bratton was there to keep an eye out for christopher ventura a six foot three specimen who looked the whole nine yards but allen couldn't keep his eyes off a small chubby kid with a swing that just kept on repeating victor was the youngest on the team and wasn't even the best player but alan just couldn't stop watching alan was the man who recruited ricky fowler and was now seeing the same traits in vic being too young to recruit now alan exchanged numbers and promised hovland he'd be back for him with that huge opportunity set in stone victor got to work on his english straight away making sure he had that edge for when he turned 18. in the meantime victor had competitions to concentrate on in europe in the next two years hobby would participate in the summer youth olympics jacques le glaze trophy eisenhower trophy and the palmer cup and then going on to win the norwegian amateur golf championship hovey's college career was up and down to start with taking a leaf out of good friend and college teammates matt wolf's book he began a journey with denny lucas a florida-based coach he found through instagram hovland's ball flight had flattened to where he was having trouble holding greens with longer clubs his frustration grew and over thanksgiving coach bratton sent vic to jupiter to meet his coach for the first time and get things sorted it was just what javi needed when he returned he was a different player he had this tremendous height and was now playing with a newfound confidence and aggressive style of play he became a first-team all-american and never finished worse than tied 12th throughout his collegiate career his big win though came in 2018 when he won the us amateur the first norwegian to do so with the win he earned invitations into the 2019 masters 2019 us open and 2019 open championship after the win he played in his first professional competition as an amateur at the emirates australian open and finished a staggering 13th place at a 2019 masters he was the leading amateur finishing three under power in a tie for 32nd with that performance he rose to number one in the amateur world rankings he continued his run of form at the us open finishing 12th plays with a score of 280. this was the lowest amateur score ever breaking jack nicholas's 1960 score of 282 he became the first player to win the low amateur honours at both the masters and the us open in the same season since matt coocher in 1998. whilst at the masters victor had coach bratton on the back he noticed john solheim the ceo of ping and took victor over to say hello being norwegian the two hit it off straight away we both were very happy to start working together after an incredible year not so much in college golf but undeniably on the main stage hov won the ben hogan award front running over his two good mates colin murrakawa and matt wolfe hovland turned professional following the 2019 us open and made his professional debut at the travellers championship in june by doing so he forfeited his automatic entry into the 2019 open championship something colin murakawa had previously done the difference though colin requalified as a pro whereas victor missed out victor refocused his energy on his pga tour card setting a pga tour record for the most consecutive rounds in the 60s to finish the year he finished tied second at the calm fairy tale finals securing his card for the 2019-2020 seasons in his first full season victor came back a brand new kid he was no longer this chubby soft kid anymore he packed on some muscle and was looking like a true athlete again shown his dedication to find small percentages to improve in february victor entered the puerto rico open in very sloppy form he missed the two previous cuts of the year and ended up duffing two chips on sunday but he dug deep and somehow managed to scrape a win this was his first pga tour winning the first norwegian to win on the pga tour in an interview after the win vic showed just the kind of guy he is i suck at chipping he said with the widest trademark smile on his face that's something i know i'm going to have to improve on if i want to play at my best level so not only was he playing bad but he was winning shortly after his win and the tour shutting down for covid hoffey went back to his inner 12 year old self researching online about his chipping and soaking everything in like a sponge he began working with pete cowan on his short game someone who had previously worked with brooks kepler and changed his game completely with things opening back up again and javi really unleashing his new game 2021 was his year he kicked off the year with his second win on tour at the may cobra classic sinking a birdie put on the last to clinch the title he then started branching out onto the european tour where we first saw his double pump golf swing coach mcgowan had hundreds of people messaging him sending him photos and videos asking what was he doing coach immediately got on the phone to vic and simply asked him what the hell are you doing when did you start doing that he calmly replied this morning it started out as a practice drill and worked so well so when he wanted that little extra yardage he would just unleash it to have the balls to whip out this in a tournament just proves once again the confidence this young man has with his game taking shape now hovland won his first event on the european tour at the bmw international open becoming the first norwegian to do so and then months later became the first norwegian to play on the ryder cup team unfortunately losing but catching up with old friends in the meantime hove's addiction to getting better was like nothing anyone had ever seen before he had tunnel vision and wasn't stopping until he found perfection again losing himself in youtube and instagram vic found himself messaging at another coach this time jeff smith based in las vegas who works with several young tall players such as aaron wise and patrick rogers the pair had mutual friends so was comfortable asking him if he could check out his swing he was on a fact-finding mission smith says what were the different views of his swing what could he take away victor has a high iq related to golf golf instruction and swing mechanics he's always thinking he's a highly intellectual individual he doesn't show off by downloading information onto you but it can tell you really quickly when something passes the sniff test or not smith really didn't want to change anything with his swing and that he didn't think he needed to make any big changes it seemed like victor like most kids these days were just scrolling through social media for solutions and looking for approval from as many people as possible he clearly has insecurities somewhere regardless of whether victor has a problem with seeking approval to start the year of 2022 from five events victor has won twice first defending his title at the worldwide technology championship in mayakoba and then a month later at the hero world challenge this win cemented his new nickname as the resort king of golf as his first five professional wins were outside the contiguous united states four of which were around the caribbean sea at 24 this almost seems like nothing for victor like he always knew he was going to win these competitions but it was the bigger and better things he was striving for it's all well and good being driven and seeking perfection even though we all know that's impossible and regardless of your golf iq and what you think you're absorbing it's a dangerous path which many golfer has been down see he keeps seeking perfection but his driving stats are out of this world averaging 307 yards off the tee ranking 35th for a 5 foot 10 165 pound man is incredible let alone ranking seventh for accuracy and fifth in greens and regulation it's not till we look at his other stats within his game where we see where the problem lays 97th in putin and 231st around the green it's definitely here where victor needs to improve and if he wants to get to that next level he needs to do so but we can forgive victor he's 24 and got a long career ahead of him he just needs to lay off the pedal a little and fine-tune his weaknesses but we can't knock his passion and work ethic and i'm pretty sure very soon he'll win a major and nudge closer to that world number one spot he's already became a national treasure and his personality alone is just what the sport needs [Music] you

Channel: Mitchell Blades

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Keywords: viktor hovland, viktor hovland swing, viktor hovland golf swing, viktor hovland highlights, viktor hovland slow motion swing, viktor hovland interview, viktor hovland driver, viktor hovland hero world challenge, viktor hovland funny moments, viktor hovland mayakoba, viktor hovland face on, viktor hovland double pump, viktor hovland driver swing, viktor hovland golf swing slow motion, the rise, documentary, documentaries, golf documentary, sports documentaries

Id: zUDxlNrg6V8

Length: 10min 29sec (629 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 28 2022