2021 World Wild Technology Championship at Mayakoba: Top 10 power rankings

If at first (and second) you don’t succeed, try, try again. Viktor Hovland missed the cut by one measly shot twice at the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba in 2018 and 2019.

The Norwegian finally began to hit on all cylinders last year. Hovland fired 67-69-63-65 and erased a two-shot deficit going into Sunday. His 20-under total was two shots away from tying the tournament record.

Hovland won by a shot over Aaron Wise and was three clear of two players in a tie for third. He made no double bogeys or worse and hit a field best 61 greens (84.72%).

“Yeah, it’s a very narrow golf course and greens are soft,” Hovland was transcribed by Tee Scripts in 2020. “I feel like that sets up well for me. If I’m hitting good shots, I can hit the ball close and I’m not going to miss that many fairways.”

That was the former Oklahoma State Cowboy’s second PGA Tour win. He hasn’t won on this tour since, but does have a win this summer at the European Tour’s BMW International Open.

Hovland finished T-2nd on the PGA Tour at the Farmers Insurance Open and WGC-Workday Championship at The Concession.

The 24-year-old took a couple weeks off since his last outing, T-18th at the CJ Cup. Hovland’s finished top-50 in 10 straight events, albeit several of those were limited field events. The highlight of that stint is solo fifth at the Tour Championship.

He has a good blend of power and accuracy that helped him finish fifth on the PGA Tour last season in strokes gained off the tee (.656). That’s huge around El Camaleon. He was also 15th in SG approach (.648) and will look to be aggressive this week attacking generally soft greens.