Out of the top 10 in the world since August, the Norwegian Viktor Hovland is doing better than defending his title acquired last year following the collapse of Collin Morikawa in the last lap. Friday he made the show with a shot that went around social networks.
Viktor Hovland, eagle
It took him a few seconds to realize! Viktor Hovland, the title holder of the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas, managed an improbable “slam-dunk”, as our American colleagues say, by returning his wegde shot directly on the par 5 hole n°6 of Albany!
Viktor Hovland is a Norwegian professional golfer who plays on the PGA Tour (and on the European Tour as an affiliate member). Hovland is ranked as of 31 January 2022 as the world’s third best golfer and is thus the highest ranked golfer in the Nordics in addition to being number two in Europe.
In April 2019, he was ranked as the world’s best amateur golfer. He became the first Norwegian to win a tournament on the PGA Tour when he won the Puerto Rico Open in 2020, and on the European Tour when he won the BMW International Open in 2021.
He has a total of three victories on the PGA Tour and two on the European Tour. After the 2019 US Open, Hovland turned professional. He played the last five regular tournaments on the PGA Tour in the 2018/2019 season thanks to sponsor invitations, but failed to make the top 125 who automatically qualified for the 2019/2020 season.
He therefore participated in the playoffs on the Korn Ferry tour, where he qualified for the PGA tour in two tournaments. Hovland delivered a very strong debut season on the PGA Tour with one victory (Puerto Rico Open in February), three top ten finishes and nine in the top 25 in a total of 20 tournaments.
He qualified for The Tour Championship and finished the season tied for 20th in the FedEx Cup with a total of $1,982,275 in prize money. Hovland finished No. 33 in the PGA Championship, the season’s only major tournament.
At the 2020 European Tour, Hovland finished 27th in the Race to Dubai rankings after third place in the DP World Tour Championship, Dubai in December. The 2020/2021 season opened with shared twelfth place in the US Open. His second career win on the PGA Tour came in the Mayakoba Golf Classic in December.
Hovland finished 2020 as No. 14 in the world rankings and third in the FedEx Cup. In February 2021, Hovland was named player of the month on the European Tour after a second place in the WGC–Workday Championship and sixth place in the Saudi International.
In June 2021, Hovland once again made history by becoming the first male Norwegian golfer to win a tournament on the European Tour when he won the BMW International Open 2021. In November, Hovland defended his title in Mayakoba, and in December he won his fifth tournament as a professional in the Hero World Challenge. Victory number six came at the Dubai Desert Classic in January 2022 after he beat Richard Bland in a replay.
