Weekly Recap: Viktor Emerges Victorious Again

It was a Thursday morning just like any other for Viktor Hovland. He was on the range at El Camaleon Golf Club preparing to play in a golf tournament. Well, it was just like any other Thursday morning until his driver, the most important club in his bag, suddenly  broke beyond repair. Someone else did it and it was accidental. But still, he didn't have a replacement.

Not exactly the best way to begin a title defense.

But in a remarkable bit of good fortune, Hovland was able to borrow a driver quite similar to his Ping G425. And, perhaps even more remarkable, he played better than he did last year, rolling to a record-setting four-stroke win over local favorite Carlos Ortiz in what is now officially known as the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba.

Hovland's 23-under total bettered his winning score from a year ago by three strokes and broke the tournament record of 22-under set by Matt Kuchar three years ago.

This was Hovland's third PGA Tour win and fourth worldwide since turning pro, and he's back to 10th in the world rankings, equaling his personal best.

Here's what happened on Thursday morning.

Hovland lent his Ping G425 to Danny Lee, who was working on speed drills on the range. Lee unleashed a mighty lash and, boom, the next thing you know it was destroyed. Hovland had another head with him, but not a shaft.

"It was just in pieces," Hovland told reporters  on the scene.

"That was very unexpected," said Lee, understatedly. "I felt so sorry for him. If I had a spare driver, I would have given it to him, but I didn't."

But James Hahn did. He offered to lend Hovland his backup driver, fortuitously a similar G425 only with a slightly shorter shaft.

Still, this wasn't like your buddy asking during your round if you wanted to hit one with his new driver. Hovland's driver is his bread and butter. He ranked top-5 on Tour last season in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, so he had a lot to lose. Obviously, he didn't lose a thing. He not only won the tournament he finished fourth in the field in driving accuracy. He felt the shorter shaft might've helped him on this shorter El Camaleon track.

The 24-year-old native of Norway could probably swing just about any driver in his sleep. Wedges? Not so much. He ranked well outside the top 100 in SG: Around-the-Green in his first two seasons on Tour, and readily admitted it was the weakest part of his game. But he's getting better.

At El Camaleon, Hovland ranked sixth in scrambling. He was asked what he's working on to improve his short game and, while it's a lot of golf-speak, here it is:

"Basically been trying to essentially rotate my forearms a little bit in the backswing so I can get that clubface to open up, get it more essentially on plane, so then I can use the bounce coming through on a lot of different shots."

The second weakest part of Hovland's game is putting, but he was 11th in putts per GIR on the week and spun 28 birdies. Really, if someone who is so accurate with his driver and his longer irons can develop even a halfway decent short game, it's next-level improvement.

Hovland excelled in another important way at Mayakoba, one immeasurable by stats. He had to play with Justin Thomas in the final group, and that can be imposing for a young player. But Hovland expanded his lead and closed with a 4-under 67 to Thomas' 69. Hovland was never challenged, and the result really wasn't in doubt. Of all the impressive things Hovland did over the four days, that might have been the most impressive.

Hovland is done with the PGA Tour for the year, but not done with golf. He'll head to Dubai in a couple of weeks for the European Tour's season-ending DP World Tour Championship. Last year, he tied for third there.

He now has two worldwide wins, two runners-up and two thirds in 2021. He's ranked 10th in the world. He's just turned 24. The scary part is, he's only just starting to figure out his wedges.

As for Hovland's trusty driver? No problems there. Or anybody else's driver, apparently.

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Carlos Ortiz
The pressure that Ortiz -- and fellow Mexican Abraham Ancer (T7) -- face playing in this tournament is enormous. And they both continue to excel. Ortiz finished runner-up for the second time in three years, sandwiching a tie for eighth last year. It has not been a good year for him. This was just his second top-10 -- the other was way back in February at Phoenix -- but he can at least salvage the year by finishing in the top 50. The runner-up moved him from 78th to 49th in the OWGR, and now he returns to Houston this week as the defending champion.

Justin Thomas
Every move that Thomas makes these days will be a referendum on his new partnership with caddie Bone Mackay. So far, so good. In just their second event since joining together full-time, Thomas wound up solo third. It was his best result since winning THE PLAYERS Championship in March. In fairness, after a sub-par summer, Thomas did start to turn it around late in the season with a pair of top-5s in the playoffs. We may not see this new tandem again till January, but they have to be feeling good about their start. And Thomas inched up from seventh to sixth in the world rankings.

Scottie Scheffler
Scheffler's breakthrough year continued with his eighth top-10 in the form of a solo fourth. He's done everything but win, and how can that not happen sooner rather than later? Maybe even this coming week at Houston, at a course that should be more suitable to his game than El Camaleon was.

Matthew Wolff
Wolff continues to reacclimate himself to professional golf with another strong week.  He couldn't make his first-round 61 lead to victory, but he did finish in the top-5. And combined with a runner-up at the Shriners last time out, Wolff has put together back-to-back strong tournaments for the first time this year. In fact, those are his only top-10s in more than a year. Wolff will continue to play this week at Houston, but we don't need to see another good finish to know his world-class game is returning.

Sergio Garcia
This good week – a tie for seventh – virtually ensures that Garcia will finish the year in the top-50 (he's 43rd). But it also appears this will end a 10-year run in which he has won at least one tournament somewhere in the world. There are still a few events left, depending on whether Garcia wants to head back to the European Tour, but he's not entered in Houston this week. No matter, he's finishing the year strong. After missing four straight cuts from the Masters to the PGA. Garcia has missed only one since with nine top-25s in 11 starts.

Danny Lee
Using his own perfectly fine driver, Lee tied for seventh. It was his last chance to fulfill terms of a medical extension, and he succeeded. Lat week, Lee was runner-up in Bermuda. In just two weeks he has climbed from outside the top 300 of the OWGR to inside the top 200, as he now sits 192nd. Lee's ability has never been an issue -- he's been ranked as high as 34th -- it's just consistency and his ability to remain healthy that gives gamers pause.

Talor Gooch
Gooch is 29 and in his fifth season on Tour, trying desperately to get into the top-50 before the year ends. If not for a double bogey on 18 on Sunday, he would already be there. That costly finish dropped him into a tie for 11th, and left him at No. 51 in the world. That matches his career best. Still, this was his fourth straight top-11 to start the season, and he'll look to keep it going this week at Houston.

Aaron Rai
The Englishman had his best Tour finish by far since becoming a member this season. He tied for 15th, following up a T62 at Bermuda and three missed cuts before that. Rai won the 2020 Scottish Open, so there's definitely some talent here. But we've so many Euros have troubles transferring that talent to the States. This was a good start. He'll also be in the Houston field this week.

Ryan Palmer
Palmer began the year ranked 30th in the world and it's a small marvel he's still in the top-50. Only six times has he been in the top-25 all year. He just missed this week with a tie for 27th. Palmer was fourth at the Sony and runner-up at Torrey Pines in January, but since then he hasn't been able to crack the top-15 in any Tour event. He's now 45 years old, and you never when an athlete's decline will accelerate. Somehow, he's fallen to only 41st in the OWGR.

Ian Poulter
Poulter is trying to finish the year inside the top-50 in the world rankings to automatically qualify for the Masters. He began this week at 51st and dropped two spots after missing the cut. He will be playing this week at the Houston Open and also might head to Dubai later this month for the finish of the 2020-21 European Tour season.

Will Zalatoris
Zalatoris missed the cut, the latest example that his strengths do not lie with shorter, more tactical tracks. He also has not been playing quite as well as he was earlier in the year.

Brooks Koepka
Koepka missed the cut, the seventh straight tournament in which he's failed to even finish in the top-20. The last time was at the Open Championship. He has fallen to 15th in the world rankings. Koepka now heads to Houston, where he had a top-5 last year after being involved in the design modifications to Memorial Park Golf Course a couple of years ago. So he has a bit of an edge on other golfers there. It would be a big concern if he wasn't in the mix this week.

Lucas Herbert
To expect a good week following a breakthrough victory is a bit unfair – winning Bermuda last week was likely the biggest moment of Herbert's young career. But he missed the cut badly, illustrating the stark differences between the very weak Bermuda field and the strong group at Mayakoba.

Thomas Pieters
The former top-25 player won the Portugal Masters for his fifth career Euro win. Pieters is now back to 73rd in the world after his fourth top-10 and 10th top-25 of the year. That's a lot. But they've all come on the European Tour and this Portugal field was woeful – even weaker than last week's Bermuda Championship, if you can imagine. Still, Pieters has shown on occasion that he can contend at a PGA Tour event. Maybe he's finding a new gear just two months before turning 30.