‘I’m certified nuts’: Viktor Hovland’s latest swing update is impressively blunt

If golf swings were children’s books, Viktor Hovland‘s would be Goldilocks.

Hovland is what’s known in golf instruction circles as a “tinkerer.” He always feels his golf swing is always too hot or cold; never just right — a combination that has turned a prolific young star into one of professional golf’s hardest workers but also potentially one of its over-thinkers.

In just the last 2 years, Hovland has hired, fired, re-hired, and re-fired his swing coach Joe Mayo to pursue his best golfing self. The result has been one of the most wildly vacillating two-year stretches for any high-level pro in recent memory, an array of sky-scraping highs (a Tour Championship victory, top-5s at each of the majors, a near-miss runner-up at the PGA Championship in ’23) and bottom-dwelling depths (MCs at the Masters, U.S. and British Opens in ’24 — not to mention a broken toe to finish off the year).

But now, Hovland has resurfaced for the start of the third act of his recent competitive life: the 2025 season. Hovland, like many other European stars, is in Dubai for the DP World Tour’s Desert Classic this week, where he will deploy the swing he has spent the better part of the last several months working to improve. The problem, he says, is that improvement is coming slowly.

“Yeah, I mean, to be honest with you, I’d like to be a little bit more hopeful,” Hovland told the DP World Tour. “But it’s been very challenging. Even with the off-season that I had, I was hoping to make a little bit more progress, feel a little bit better about my game. But it’s been … it’s been challenging. It’s a hard game, but I do feel like I’m headed in the right direction.”

Hovland’s 2025 has gotten off to an inauspicious start. He finished T36 in a limited field at the PGA Tour’s season-opener at Kapalua, deploying a new move that featured a full-fledged hitch at the top of the backswing. Earlier in the same week, Hovland announced that he and Mayo had parted ways again, opening the door for new swing coach TJ Yeaton to emerge from the bullpen.

According to Hovland, his swing is and is not at the center of the issue. In one sense, Hovland is searching for something he’s had already: a swing consistent and repeatable enough to put him regularly in contention at big golf tournaments. In another, he’s searching for something he’s never possessed: a level of contentment with his golf swing that will allow him to focus on golf’s other infinitesimally small yet utterly momentous components.

As far as that second piece is concerned, Hovland’s self-assessment was … blunt.

“I mean, I’m certified nuts,” he said. “There’s gotta be some tinkering going on, but that’s this game. At least I have a way better understanding and appreciation for what I used to do, even though there were certain aspects before that I didn’t really love about my swing, like it looked quirky or look goofy.”

The swing is still goofy now, Hovland says, and it hasn’t reached the threshold of goofy-yet-performing that carried it through much of 2023. That’s the real challenge.

“It’s just taking a little bit longer than I would have liked,” he said. “But what’s cool is, and I try to tell myself that even last year, I made it to the Tour Championship. I almost won a major, almost won a playoff event, with a swing that I hate to look at on camera, and it just doesn’t feel good when I’m swinging. So there’s a lot of good golf in there, but I gotta at least give myself a chance to hit some good shots.”

If you’re Hovland, the bad news is that the golf season is rapidly picking up speed. If the fixes do not come soon, 2025 could pass him by. The good news — he thinks — is that he knows more today than he did yesterday, which means there is still reason for hope.

“Now at least have a better understanding biomechanically, why those golf swings worked and why I’m struggling now,” he said. “I just know a lot better. When I can see it on camera, tracking the numbers, I know what’s good and what’s not good. And I’ll stay within the boundaries if that makes sense.”

Hovland hopes it makes sense, because he knows the whole process has been crazy.

Thankfully, he also knows that genius is crazy.

Sometimes, it’s downright nuts.