‘BEING OUT HERE ON TOUR STILL FEELS UNREAL – LIKE A DREAM’

Viktor Hovland on Tiger, targets and being over that Ryder Cup

Congratulations on your Hero World Challenge win. It wasn’t an official PGA Tour win but did it feel like one, given the strength of the field?

Hell, yeah! There were only 20 players in the field but the strength was great and I feel like my wins (see box) have come when the fields haven’t been as strong, so for me to do well in a field like that gives me a

lot of confidence. Winning Tiger’s event was clearly a big thing. How big an inspiration was

he to you growing up?

Yeah, I remember sitting in the classroom at school in Norway just watching highlights of Tiger on Youtube. He definitely inspired me and helped me in that way, but I also took a lot of inspiration from Henrik Bjornstad, who was Norway’s first player on the PGA Tour. I got to pick his brain when I was 13 or 14 and that had a big impact on me as well. Did Christmas come at a bad time for you, given you’d clearly found some good form?

No, I needed a little break. I went back to Norway and spent Christmas there, just relaxing. It was too cold to play any golf, so I just got some R&R. What are your targets for 2022 – have you set anything specific? good indicator of what I’m doing. You can play great and not win tournaments, so I think, for me, it’s just I need to keep doing what I am doing, because I’ve been playing really, really well, but I need to just get a little sharper on and around the greens, which I feel like I’m already showing promise there. I feel like if I just keep working on what I’m doing over the course of a year, if we could just get a little bit better there, that’s going to be huge. In terms of where you want to be in your career and wins (5), are you ahead of schedule?

Yes, I would say so. You know, it’s still crazy to think that I’m playing on the PGA Tour, thinking back to where I grew up and playing golf in Norway. You’re playing golf for six months and it’s pretty far-fetched to even play golf professionally. So for me to be winning tournaments is still pretty unreal. We’re a few months on from your Ryder Cup debut now. How do you look back on that experience?

Well, first of all, just some great memories, just being around my teammates. Growing up I basically watched half of that team and all the vice captains and Padraig as the captain, play in the Ryder Cup and, I mean, just being on that team I was surrounded by legends of European golf the last 20, 25 years. So that was just incredible. But as far as my golf game, I was able to hit some really nice shots under the biggest pressure I’ve ever had and I take a lot of comfort knowing that I can perform at that level. Did it take a long time to get over it, the loss?

It passed pretty quickly because obviously it wasn’t that close. If it had come down to one putt that I missed on the last hole or something like that, that would have been tough to get over, but we got beat by the better team and that’s how it goes sometimes. It sucked, but I try to learn from kind of everything that happens and try to turn it into something positive.