Victor Hovland boosts his weekly earnings to £17.2m and makes his caddy Shay Knight one of the highest earners in Australia 2023. Photo: Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images
The story goes that at the last Ryder Cup, Padraig Harrington asked each of his players to write who they wanted to play with. The Irishman was stunned when they all returned under the same name – Viktor Hovland.
After the Norwegian's convincing success in winning the Tour Championship on Sunday night, Luke Donald should expect more pressure to team up with him . Hovland at the biennial competition next month in Rome.
“Let’s just say that if Luke asks someone to play with Victor, he definitely won’t refuse, right?” Rory McIlroy said. Not in this shape.”
McIlroy might actually be a smart choice to pair with Hovland. Not only can rival McIlroy, 25, play ball, but the boy who learned to play in an aircraft hangar during harsh winters in his home country shouldn't feel financially intimidated after that past. in two weeks.
The $18 million (£14.32 million) he earned from the FedEx Cup Final added to the $3.6 million (£2.86 million) he earned from winning the BMW Championship last weekend, bringing the totaled $21.6 million (£17.18 million) in the past eight days.
That's more than any golfer has ever earned on the course in two weeks, including on the LIV Golf course. His caddy, Shay Knight, will receive over $2m [£1.59m] in interest, and the Tour jokes that he is one of the highest paid Australians in the sport in the past 12 months.
Victor Hovland played all five games at the last Ryder Cup in Whistling Straits, scoring just one point. Photo: REUTERS/Mike Segar
If these numbers are staggering – and many might consider OTT's wealth, if not offensive – then at least Hovland was kind enough to ensure that his numbers on the scorecard were just as staggering. He fought off Olympian Xander Schaufele with five hits on a stupid handicapped scoring system – Hovland started the week seven under, Schaufele two under – but he was a real player rated under 20, which means that in combined with BMW he was up to 37 for eight rounds.
His 63rd total this Sunday – the lowest final-round winner in Tour Championship history – was two strokes behind the previous Sunday. Hovland is so hot that now he can hardly control himself.
“The game plan was to try and play as boring as possible – play like Tiger [Woods] on the day he scored 69 or 70 in a major championship and walked away with a win,” Hovland said with a smile. a nod towards the 62s of Schaufele. “What he did today was special. It made the day more stressful than it should have been. But standing here now is pretty surreal. Over the past two weeks, I have shown my best golf, and it happened at the right time.”
Donald will just be desperate for the purple spot to continue for another month. Hovland did well at Whistling Straits in 2021 and Harrington impressed him enough to play all five sessions with him. But he only scored one point. Donald knows that two years later, Hovland has become a different golfer, having made significant improvements not only in his short game, but in his long game, which does not seem to need correction.
However, Hovland realized that one more step needs to be taken by speeding up the movement to provide more consistency, especially on difficult trails.
“If you want to take it to the next level, you have to look inward,” Hovland said. “I think when you're trying to be honest with yourself and asking yourself, 'OK, how can I get better?', I just have to force myself to change a couple of things in my thinking.”
McIlroy witnessed a transformation up close . “He found a really repeatable golf swing,” he said. “He kind of directs it to the right side, brings it down and delivers such a flat blow there. He is one of the best golf ball racers in the world. I think, as we all know, this year he improved his performance on the green. That was the difference between him still being a top 10 player in the world and what he did this year.”
The next stage of Hovland's individual odyssey is obvious. He finished second at the USPGA in May and fourth at last year's Open. Frankly, it will be a surprise if Oslo – or “California 2.0” as Hovland comically calls it – doesn't celebrate its first big winner in the next five years. However, team play is next, and Donald must be delighted that his team boasts world numbers 2, 3, and 4 and that the entire triumvirate will take part in a reconnaissance and liaison mission on the field in two weeks golf Marco Simone.
“For the most part, we're all playing very well,” said McIroy, who allayed concerns about recent muscle spasms in his back by finishing fourth in East Lake. “It will be just a great experience, we are going to spend a few nights in Rome just to get the team together. It will be great to get everyone together and have dinner early. This team chemistry is already starting. Yes, everyone will probably want to sit next to Victor.
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