Viktor Hovland embarrasses himself just hours after admitting, “I suck.”

Viktor Hovland shot a brilliant seven-under-par opening round at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am on Thursday, just 24 hours after saying “I suck.”

Hovland, the 2023 FedEx Cup champion, endured a brutal, winless 2024 season, and he did not speak with much optimism about the state of his game at Wednesday’s pre-tournament press conference. “In my opinion, I suck at it right now, but that’s all relative,” the world No. 9 admitted.

But he defied his expectations with eight birdies and just one bogey en route to an impressive round of 65 at Pebble Beach on Thursday to move into a six-way tie for second place, one shot adrift of early leader Russell Henley.

The Norwegian, 27, was in a philosophical mood after the conclusion of his opening round, insisting he remains unhappy with the state of his game. “You know, I can still play and today was good conditions And I hit a few really nice wedges and started making some putts.

“I’m trying to obviously get my mind out of the technical aspects of it and just trying to play golf. Obviously, I can’t complain about whatever the stats are 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. 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, but I know that I’m not going to just let that overlook the problems or the issues that I have in my game. They’re still there, but I was able to overcome it today.”
Six-time PGA Tour winner Hovland has not won since romping to victory at the Tour Championship in August 2023. His downturn in form was sparked by misguided swing changes that saw him lose control of his ball flight. He said on Wednesday that the experience has taught him to be more cautious when making tweaks to his game.

“I’m very curious by nature, and I like to look under every single stone,” he said. “I think if I didn’t do that, I wouldn’t be here today because I was never the most talented; I was never the best in my age group growing up.

“I always had to improve every single year to get to where I’m at today. So I don’t think that is the problem in itself, it’s just I made a few poor decisions along the way and I’ve kind of learnt that lesson now. So, I’ll probably be a little bit more reluctant to make changes unless I really have good data to support that change.”