Viktor Hovland Enters Arnold Palmer Invitational With a New Coach and a Realistic Take on the State of the PGA Tour

The reigning FedEx Cup champ compares the pro golf landscape to a chess game where not all the pieces are visible.

Viktor Hovland has made just three PGA Tour starts in 2024, finishing T22 at the Sentry, T58 at the shortened AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and T19 at Riviera. On paper, those results aren’t exactly worth pressing the panic button, but the Norwegian insists that he has some serious sharpening to do. As Hovland prepares for this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational, an event he’s always loved, he wishes there were a few more pieces in place—both on and off the course.

“I’ve played some nice golf here, especially the last two years. I have some good memories from playing here as an amateur at the API, making my first cut. It’s good to be back, but I would have liked to get into this week with a little bit better form,” the Mastercard ambassador says to Sports Illustrated. “My game is not quite where I want it but that's how it goes and you never know in golf, suddenly I might play amazing or not so well. But you never know and that’s why we play the game.”

Outside those three tournaments, Hovland has spent recent weeks grinding on his swing, but in a new setting. The 26-year-old is thinking about a permanent move to Florida, so he’s been preparing for this week’s elevated event in Palm Beach rather than Stillwater, Okla. Hovland set up a home base there a few years ago to be close to the Oklahoma State community as he navigated the early stages of pro life.

Viktor Hovland is the reigning FedEx Cup champion :: Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images

But now it appears that Hovland is ready to make a change. For starters, if he settles on Palm Beach, it’ll be easier for Hovland’s friends and family to visit from Norway. It will also be a more convenient location for Hovland to work with his new swing coach, Grant Waite.

Waite is a former PGA Tour winner-turned-swing guru and arrives just months after Hovland split with Joe Mayo, the coach who revamped his short game and helped guide him to a three-win season in 2023. It turns out that Mayo actually introduced Hovland to Waite, who has worked with a handful of male and female pros, including Trevor Immelman and Paula Creamer.

“Joe and Grant have known each other for many years, and I’ve always heard Grant’s name. He’s a very smart guy and obviously was a great player, being a PGA Tour winner,” Hovland says. “I heard a lot of people speak very highly of him, and now that I’m here in Palm Beach, and he’s in Orlando, he’s very accessible. I can drive up to him or he can drive down to me.”

While Hovland still won’t disclose why he split from Mayo, he did offer some insight into the inspiration for his new partnership with Waite. The relationship traces back to when Hovland was still working with Mayo.

“Credit to Joe, because golf instruction isn’t so black and white, there isn’t always a wrong or correct answer, sometimes when you’re dealing with a good player, you want to make sure you’re giving sound advice," Hovland says. "Joe would call a couple of guys, not too many—only the ones he trusted—and Grant was one of those guys.

“So that plus Grant having a player background, that makes him very trustworthy. You trust what he’s saying because he has the knowledge, the information, but also the background.”

Hovland is a realist when it comes to tweaking and improving his game. He’s not going to lie to himself when things aren’t clicking, and he’ll look to gather every piece of information available to aid in his progress.

He operates under the same mentality when it comes to matters off the course, of which there are many at the moment. As the PGA Tour and LIV Golf continue as separate entities, and the divide in men’s golf widens, Hovland knows what he needs: answers.

“If you’re playing a chess game and you don’t see all the pieces, you can’t make a good move. It’s like the armchair quarterback saying, ‘Hey, you need to do this, this and this,’ but I don’t know what’s going on,” he says.

“I don’t love the situation we’re in. It’s been good for some, but the game as a whole feels a little divided. I’d like to see some sort of coming together eventually.”

Like many players, however, Hovland doesn’t offer up an opinion of what unification of the game could look like, despite his dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs. For Hovland, there are simply too many pieces concealed on his metaphorical chess board.

“I feel like you ask one question and that opens up five or seven more," he says. If you ask one question, you might see more of the chess board, if you will. But you still need to get to the bottom before you can give an intelligent proposal as to what we should do.”

Hovland tees off at 10:20 a.m. ET alongside Rickie Fowler for his opening round at Bay Hill on Thursday.