Viktor Hovland: Do Stats Tells Us How Good He Can Become?

Viktor Hovland is now a two-time winner on the PGA Tour. Now the question is, how good can he become?

Viktor Hovland follows in a new tradition started by Jon Rahm, and before him, Luke Donald and Graeme McDowell, as one of the few Europeans electing to play collegiate golf in the US before turning pro. Most European players did not go to college. Rory McIlroy turned professional at 18. Sergio Garcia did it at 19.

While Hovland’s probably not the next Tiger Woods, because nobody is, could he become the next Justin Thomas?

Well, as they used to say in professional golf, on the PGA Tour, anything’s possible.

Hovland is more than just garden variety player. After a stellar career at Oklahoma State University, where he was part of the 2018 NCAA Championship team, he won the U.S. Amateur. That gave him an exemption into the 2019 Masters, the 2019 U.S. Open and the 2019 British Open. He capitalized on the opportunity.

At the Masters, he was low amateur, made the cut and finished T-32. At the U.S. Open, he was 12th, with a score of 280, which was the lowest ever amateur score in a U.S. Open. He broke Jack Nicklaus’ 1960 record of 282.

With that kind of performance, Hovland almost had to turn professional. Who knew if a year like that would come again? He did not want to let the opportunities slip away.

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The week after the U.S. Open, he entered the Travelers Championship, no doubt on a special exemption, and made his PGA Tour and professional debut. Six months later, in Puerto Rico, he won his first PGA Tour title. It was just last February, but it seems like a lifetime ago.

Now, less than a year later, and in under 18 months as a professional — four of that during a pandemic — he has managed to win his second PGA Tour event, against a field that included fellow OSU Cowboy Rickie Fowler and four-time major winner Brooks Koepka, who missed the cut.

Starting in January, we will find out just what Hovland can really do. His main difficulty is that he may not have seen all of the golf courses before, so it’s a steep learning curve for him. However, here’s what we can expect:

He’s not a super long driver, but he’s long enough, with an average of 304 yards off the tee, about five yards longer than his rookie year. His accuracy is decent, hitting 63 percent of fairways.
He’s 54th in greens in regulation, a stat which is important, because if you’re off the green, it’s harder to make a birdie and harder to make par. The greens in regulation stat is a key to consistently good golf, and consistently good golf is how champions are made. He gets there 68 percent of the time.
His putting average is 16th on the PGA Tour, one behind Jordan Spieth and three behind Justin Thomas. In other words, the kid has game. His putting average is 1.76. In other words, he’s nicely under two putts on each green. He’s averaging 31 putts per round. If par is 72, you do the math for four rounds.

So how good can he be? The way to measure performance, other than counting trophies, is to look at the stats.

The gold standard there is Tiger Woods. We don’t have stats for Jack Nicklaus’ career, so Woods is the guidepost for every golfer when measuring performance. His 2000 and 2001 performances are generally considered the best golf Woods ever played, so looking at Woods’ stats then gives us an idea of how close Hovland is to “perfection” and how far he has to go. What is his upside?

In 2000, Woods driving average was 298 yards. His driving accuracy was 71 percent. Greens in regulation, 71 percent. His putting average was 1.71. Importantly, that year, he was first in greens in regulation and second in putting average.

In 2001, Woods driving distance was 297 yards. His driving accuracy was 65 percent. Greens in regulation, 75 percent. His putting average was 1.77. He was fifth in greens in regulation but 102nd in putting average. (What a difference .06 makes.)

Hovland’s stats, compared to the best Woods played, show he’s probably long enough, even though courses have been lengthened since 2000. Hovland isn’t hitting quite as many fairways as Woods did in his prime, 63 versus between 65 and 71 percent. His greens in regulation are a few percentage points lower than Woods, but whose aren’t? And his putting, well that could be the key to a long and successful career. At 1.77, it’s identical to Woods in 2001.

So, while it doesn’t look like Hovland will dominate golf courses the way Dustin Johnson and Rory McIlroy do, who is to say that he can’t have a career like Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth or even Zach Johnson? Most new PGA Tour golfers would take Johnson’s 12 PGA Tour victories and three majors or Spieth’s three majors and 11 PGA Tour titles or Thomas’ major and 13 PGA Tour wins if offered to them.

And if Hovland can improve just a little in just a few areas, he might surprise on the upside. He showed us what he’s made of with his wining putt at Mayakoba. He said he was nervous, but he still made it, and that’s the difference between champions and those who want to be champions.

Unless he messes up what is already a very good golf game, Hovland should continue to rake in trophies. A future star? Very likely.

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