PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. – One day after saying his game “sucked,” Viktor Hovland made eight birdies and shot 65 on Thursday at Pebble Beach Golf Links to sit one stroke off the lead held by Russell Henley at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. How did the Norwegian explain this sudden turnaround?
“I can still play and today was good conditions,” he said. “And I hit a few really nice wedges and started making some putts.”
On Wednesday, during his pre-tournament press conference, Hovland was asked what he loves about the game and his answer was telling. “The game itself, it’s so elusive, it’s so counterintuitive, yet it looks so simple. It’s just fascinating,” he said. “It’s just problems upon problems upon problems that you have to solve and I think that’s very intriguing. You never solve it, but you can always improve and you can figure things out along the way.”
The days of Hovland hitting the ball on a string the way he did in 2023 en route to winning the FedEx Cup feel like a distant memory to him but he loves chasing greatness and he’s confident that the foundation remains to get back to the form that made him a worldbeater. Thursday was a step in the right direction. He drove it straight, wedged it close and made some putts.
“It’s hard to kind of pick out one thing,” he said when asked what made him happy in the opening round. “It was a lot of good today.”
But he wouldn’t go so far as to say that he doesn’t suck.
“I’m still not happy with my game, how it looks, but that doesn’t mean that I can have great individual days or great individual tournaments. So I’m still really pumped to shoot 65,” he explained. “Whatever the stats for today I gained probably off the tee and into the greens. Looks great on paper. It’s just how my mind works is naturally trying to extrapolate what I did today and how would I play over the course of a season.”
Hovland fired instructor Joe Mayo during the off season and has worked with some consultants but said he’s still searching for a new coach. As much as he loves Pebble Beach, where he won the U.S. Amateur in 2018 and was low amateur at the 2019 U.S. Open, he said he considered skipping the event to keep working on his swing.
“Constantly trying to come out here and pump yourself up to play well and then you’re disappointed because you can’t play at that level, you know, it takes a toll psychologically,” he said. “So just trying to have a little bit more fun, not care as much about the result and just go from there.”
As for a mental coach, he said that’s not for him.
“When the ball is going all over the place and you’re paying a guy to sit there and say ‘just be positive,’ that kind of grinds my gears a little bit,” he said. “I don’t want to hear that.”
His score didn’t suck in the opening round at a place where Hovland is confident he can plot his way around, but had he been playing at other big-boy courses such as Muirfield Village, home of the Memorial, Hovland said his game would’ve been exposed. In Hovland’s head, his game still is too flawed.
“They’re still there, but I was able to overcome it today,” he said.
Luck of the Irish
Shane Lowry and Rory McIlroy could have shot a Doublemint chewing gum commercial on Thursday because the two European Ryder Cup team buddies doubled their pleasure and doubled their fun with a pair of aces.
McIlroy made a hole-in-one first at Spyglass Hill’s 119-yard, par-3 15th.
“It was a perfect number for a gap wedge for me, it was 135 adjusted and I could just go ahead and take a good swing at it,” he said. “It’s such an elevated tee that the ball’s in the air and you know it’s online but you don’t know whether to say go or sit or spin or release or whatever. It’s sort of weird, you’re looking at it and you’re sort of watching where it might land on the green and the thing just disappears.”
Lowry, who started on No. 10 at Pebble, enjoyed his own moment using a 54-degree wedge at the famed 113-yard, par-3 7th.
“It came out lovely just left of the hole, which is where you need to pitch it if you want to get it real close,” he said. “Yeah, big bounce, it was perfect. It just spun and spun right into the hole. It was pretty cool.”
The Northern Irishman slam-dunked it for his second career ace on Tour.
“Honestly, it was lucky, I don’t see many balls nowadays go straight in the hole and stay in the hole,” he said. “Pretty fortunate because it could have come out and went back in the water or do anything.”
Lowry, who started on No. 10 at Pebble, enjoyed his own moment using a 54-degree wedge at the famed 113-yard, par-3 7th.
“It came out lovely just left of the hole, which is where you need to pitch it if you want to get it real close,” he said. “Yeah, big bounce, it was perfect. It just spun and spun right into the hole. It was pretty cool.”
When asked where he’d be buying drinks this evening, Lowry, who celebrated his British Open victory at an Irish bar into the wee hours of the morning, called this a “school night.”
“If there’s a few people there at dinner, I’m sure. Hopefully Rory’s there as well, I get to split the bill with him,” he said.
But Lowry didn’t hesitate when asked whose ace was better. “Yeah, mine is definitely better,” he said.
Scheffler and Spieth are back
With a first-round 8-under 64 at Spyglass Hill Golf Course, Russell Henley holds a one-stroke lead over six players. He birdied half the holes, including a chip-in with his lob wedge at No. 9. The scoring was low on Thursday at the AT&T as the field took advantage of calm conditions, averaging 68.175 at Pebble and 69.775 at Spyglass.
“There’s no real guessing game, it’s just kind of point and shoot really,” said Jake Knapp, who shot a bogey-free 65 at Pebble Beach. “Just a lot of target golf.”
Scottie Scheffler showed little rust at finding his target. Coming off minor surgery to remove glass from his hand in a freak accident on Christmas, he posted 5-under 67 at Spyglass.
“I liked what I saw today,” he said. “I hit a few errant shots out there, but overall kept the course in front of me for the most part, so I was able to make a decent amount of birdies.”
Spieth was coming off a longer layoff. He is making his first start since August at the FedEx St. Jude Championship, after undergoing surgery on his left wrist to repair a ruptured tendon sheath. Spieth started on the back nine and made a 20-foot birdie at Spyglass’s 13th hole and was 3-under through his first eight holes, but took three putts from 65 feet at No. 2 and signed for 2-under 70.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Pebble Beach 2025: Russell Henley, Scottie Scheffler makes debut
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