Viktor Hovland explains toe injury, goal to ‘own my swing’

KAPALUA, Hawaii — Viktor Hovland will have been away from competition for 122 days when he tees it up at The Sentry on Thursday. It’s the longest break of his professional career, and the Norwegian star was excited to get going.

And then he flew to Hawaii and didn’t make it through one night without a freak injury.

Hovland slammed the pinkie toe on his right foot into the bed frame during the middle of the night, leading to an image he posted to Instagram of a clean break.

He managed to look on the bright side.

“It’s the best one to break,” he said, referring to his golf swing.

Hovland said it took 24 hours for him to get from Norway to Kapalua and he was so exhausted that he fell asleep in bed with his clothes still on.

“I got up in the middle of the night and was going to turn down the lights and get ready for bed and I stubbed it on the bed frame,” he said. “It happens.”

He walked with a noticeable limp while chipping and putting on Monday at the Plantation course but said it already was feeling better. He was taping it and taking painkillers.

“I think the walk is going to be the toughest part this week,” Hovland said of a Kapalua course that has the steepest terrain on tour. “The swing is feeling better and better.”

The golf break was by design. Hovland said he needed time away from the game to let a nagging wrist injury heal and to clear his head as he tries to dial in his swing.

He parted with swing coach Joe Mayo, reunited and then decided recently to go his own way. Hovland won the FedExCup in 2023 and then had a poor year by his standards. Even without having confidence in how he was hitting, he finished third at the PGA Championship and was runner-up at the first FedExCup playoff event.

Hovland still made it to the Tour Championship and remained in the top 10 in the world ranking at No. 8.

“From a feel standpoint, it was as bad as it could have felt,” he said. “It’s cool to look back that I almost won a major, almost won a playoff event, got to the Tour Championship. I think I’ve got to take that with me a little more and tell myself it’s better than what it feels like.”

During his four months away, he said, he worked on his game and tried to relax. Hovland says he felt as though he was making progress and his swing at least is on the right track. But it wasn’t a case of tearing down his entire swing and starting over.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” he said. “But you do have to look at it from the basics. You have to question everything. If you try to work on stuff and it’s not changing the picture the way you want it to, you have to look at the basics. That’s when things tends to go awry when you play bad. You have a couple of fundamental changes, you compensate on top of that and then your mind can spin.”

Of his coach, he said only that he’s not working with Mayo. Hovland said he is using another coach as a consultant, though he did not say who that was.

The objective ultimately is go it alone.

“I’ve come to understand quite a bit myself,” he said. “I can trust my intuition, but it’s good to have other people you can run things by. Hopefully in the future I can own my game, own my swing. That’s how it was when I came out there. I had one shot and I played that. And it was good. So we’ll see.”