Background and career
Viktor Hovland (born 18 September 1997) is a Norwegian professional golfer who plays on the PGA Tour and European Tour. He won the 2018 U.S. Amateur and reached number one in the World Amateur Golf Ranking in 2019. Hovland became the first Norwegian to win on the PGA Tour (2020 Puerto Rico Open) and on the European Tour (2021 BMW International Open). He has won eight times on the PGA Tour, including at the 2023 Tour Championship, resulting in his first FedEx Cup. Hovland competed at the 2020 Summer Olympics and the 2024 Summer Olympics.
Hovland started playing golf at the age of eleven, after his father Harald had taken up golf while working as an engineer in St. Louis. Five years later, in 2014, Hovland won the Norwegian Amateur Golf Championship as a 16-year-old. From 2016 to 2019, he played college golf at Oklahoma State University with, among others, Kristoffer Ventura. Hovland won the 2018 U.S. Amateur, the first Norwegian player to do so, and earned invitations into the 2019 Masters Tournament, the 2019 U.S. Open, and the 2019 Open Championship. He played in the 2018 Emirates Australian Open as an amateur, finishing tied for 13th place. Hovland was the low amateur in the 2019 Masters Tournament, finishing three under par in a tie for 32nd. With this performance he rose to number one in the World Amateur Golf Ranking. In the 2019 U.S. Open, he finished in 12th place and was low amateur with a score of 280. This was the lowest 72-hole score by an amateur in the U.S. Open, breaking the previous record of 282, set by Jack Nicklaus in 1960. He became the first player to win low amateur honors at both the Masters and U.S. Open in the same season since Matt Kuchar in 1998. In 2019, he was the recipient of the Ben Hogan Award, awarded to the best college player in the United States.
Hovland turned professional following the 2019 U.S. Open, and made his professional debut at the Travelers Championship in June. By doing so, he forfeited his automatic entry to the 2019 Open Championship. In August, Hovland finished tied for second in the Albertsons Boise Open, part of the Korn Ferry Tour Finals. This finish secured him a PGA Tour card for the 2019–20 season. Hovland set a PGA Tour record for most consecutive rounds in the 60s with 19 lasting into the second round of the CJ Cup in South Korea.
In February, Hovland became the first Norwegian to win on the PGA Tour when he won the Puerto Rico Open. In December, he picked up his second PGA Tour win, and his first at a full-strength PGA Tour tournament, by birdieing the 72nd hole at the Mayakoba Golf Classic.
In June, Hovland became the first Norwegian to win on the European Tour when he won the BMW International Open. In September, Hovland played on the European team in the 2021 Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits in Kohler, Wisconsin. Hovland was the first Norwegian Ryder Cup member. The U.S. team won 19–9 and Hovland went 0–3–2 and tied his Sunday singles match against Collin Morikawa. In November, Hovland successfully defended his title at the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. He won by four strokes and set a tournament record of 23 under par. A month later, he won the Hero World Challenge, finishing at 18 under par, one shot ahead of Scottie Scheffler. Key moments in this win were back-to-back eagles in the final round on holes 14 and 15. This win cemented his new nickname as the "Resort King" of golf, as his first 5 professional wins were outside of the Contiguous United States, 4 of which around the Caribbean Sea.
Hovland started the year with a top-5 finish at the European Tour's Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship in January. The following week he won the Slync.io Dubai Desert Classic; after shooting a final-round 66, he made a birdie on the first hole of a sudden-death playoff to defeat Richard Bland. The win lifted him to number three in the Official World Golf Ranking. In December 2022, Hovland successfully defended his title at the Hero World Challenge at Albany in the Bahamas, matching Tiger Woods as the only player with back-to-back wins in the event.
