<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=2l9AMU_0uxbRSmS00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=2l9AMU_0uxbRSmS00" width="2048" height="1536" ></figure>After the 2023 Tour Championship, it looked as if Viktor Hovland would continue to rise amongst the elites of professional golf’s elites, challenging Scottie Scheffler for world number one.The Norwegian won the BMW Championship and Tour Championship in back-to-back starts, showing why he was such a highly regarded prospect coming out of Oklahoma State.However, in the off-season, Hovland made some swing changes that completely changed that trajectory, resulting in his worst ever season as a professional.While speaking to the media prior to this week’s FedEx St. Jude Championship, Hovland was candid about what went wrong.“The things that I did in my swing that made me good, that made me able to predict a certain ball flight, I went home and tried to do a certain move, not necessarily because I had in mind that I wanted to change my pattern. I knew my pattern was really good. But I was upset that I wasn’t cutting the ball as much as I would have liked,” he said.“My ball flight started to become a little bit of a draw, which is fine. I was still hitting it good. But sometimes visually I would have liked to have seen the cut.“Then in the off-season I made a conscious effort to try to cut the ball more, and when I did that, I ruined a relationship that happens in my swing that makes it really difficult for me to control the face coming down.”“So now it’s just kind of me learning from that. I know exactly why it happened. I know exactly what happens because I’ve gotten myself measured, and now it’s just kind of a process of getting back to where I was. But at least I know I have all the data and the facts on the table to go about it.”Despite the struggles this season, Hovland believes he’s finally ready to start the upward trajectory once again.“I’m not sure how long it’s going to take for me to play my best golf. It might be this week. It might be next week. But at least now I’m on a path to progress,” he said.“I’m on a path to improvement. Whereas before, one thing is playing bad, but you don’t know why and you don’t know how to fix it. That’s very challenging mentally.“I might play terrible this week, but at least I feel like I’m on a path to improvement, and that’s all that kind of matters for me.”The 26-year-old currently ranks 57th in the FedEx Cup standings and needs a strong performance this week to earn the privilege of defending his title at next week’s BMW Championship.<ul><li>Shane Lowry says this prevalent criticism surrounding Rory McIlroy ‘makes his blood boil’</li><li>Brandel Chamblee on why he feels Rory’s game ‘deteriorates in the biggest moments‘</li><li>Find out more about GolfWRX and the GolfWRX forums.</li></ul><h2>Matt Kuchar’s caddie has his say following 72nd hole walk off criticism</h2>Last Sunday, Matt Kuchar hit his drive left of the 18th fairway as darkness began to overtake Sedgefield Country Club.His playing partners, Chad Ramey and Max Greyserman, were already out of the hunt for first place and looking to finish the hole to get out of Greensboro, NC. Kuchar, on the other hand, decided to mark his ball and tell the officials he was done playing for the night, opting to come back Monday to finish.Kuchar spoke with the media Sunday night, saying he was making that decision in part due to Greyserman.“I was trying to set an example for Max,” the veteran said.“We were so far past when we should’ve stopped playing. We saw what Max did on hole 16 (four-putting for a double bogey) – they should’ve blown the horn there.“I feel bad, the poor kid should’ve won this tournament. By me not playing, it may show Max he has an important shot to hit.”Kuchar would tee off at 8:00 am Monday and make a par, a result that would have been highly unlikely Sunday night, as Kuchar explained in his post-round interview.Despite the explanation, many fans on social media were critical of Kuchar, not buying his reasoning.On Tuesday. Kuchar’s caddie, Brian Reed, replied to a tweet on Trevor Immelman, who was on the call for Kuchar’s controversial finish.<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">It was! Worth the wait. If we finished…..You would have been back to call Monday morning. We would have needed an official and that would have taken at least 5 minutes we did not have. Figured Max was going to stop. Did not know Rai made birdie.— Brian Reed (@Breed73) <a href="https://twitter.com/Breed73/status/1823334313187827922?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 13, 2024</a><input type="image" src="empty.gif" style="opacity:0" onerror="s=document.createElement(&quot;script&quot;);s.src=&quot;https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js&quot;;document.body.appendChild(s);"></blockquote>“It was! Worth the wait. If we finished…..You would have been back to call Monday morning. We would have needed an official and that would have taken at least 5 minutes we did not have. Figured Max was going to stop. Did not know Rai made birdie.”Reed’s comments back up the claim that Kuchar was trying to help out Greyserman, who believed he was down by one shot on the 18th hole.However, Greyserman elected to finish anyway, losing to Rai by two strokes after the Englishman’s birdie on 17.</div></body>

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Viktor Hovland reveals the source of what brought about swing troubles

After the 2023 Tour Championship, it looked as if Viktor Hovland would continue to rise amongst the elites of professional golf’s elites, challenging Scottie Scheffler for world number one. The Norwegian won the BMW Championship and Tour Championship in back-to-back starts, showing why he was such a highly regarded...

Viktor Hovland reveals the source of what brought about swing troubles

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