ARNOLD PALMER INVITATIONAL

March 3, 2023

Viktor Hovland

Bay Hill Club and Lodge

Quick Quotes

Q. Viktor, your fourth PGA TOUR ace. How many aces do you have in your career, period?

VIKTOR HOVLAND: I've got six, five of 'em in tournaments, and my first one was when I was like 21. So all six of 'em happened in the last four years.

Q. Do you have like an open bar tab all over the place? That's a lot of aces.

VIKTOR HOVLAND: Yeah, I mean, I'm not the biggest drinker, but if you're around me and we're at a bar, then you can send it on my tab, that's for sure.

Q. What was the club and what were you trying to do?

VIKTOR HOVLAND: It was a 7-iron. I saw Will hit the shot before me and I was very surprised and he was very surprised too how much the wind took it over to the right. So that made me play my shot a bit more conservatively, because I was a little indecisive. I thought the wind was, if anything, maybe slightly going to help the fade shot. But it was obvious with Will that it wasn't. So that kind of freed me up and I could kind of commit to a full 7-iron, just hit it way left and let the wind take it.

I was a little bit worried halfway there, I thought it was drifting a little bit too much. But it kind of stayed straight and I don't know what it did when it landed on the green, but obviously went in, so that was cool.

Q. Do you find yourself just playing to spots when the greens are this crispy?

VIKTOR HOVLAND: Certain spots, yeah, for sure. You've definitely got to be in the fairway. If you're not in the fairway, then you're just hoping for a good lie and try to figure out, okay, how do I make par.

But obviously, I think they put some water on the greens today. They were by no means soft. But if you kind of had it going into the wind on certain approach shots, you could be a little bit aggressive taking it at the pins because it was actually going to stop.

Q. Was it about what you thought it would be when you saw the forecast or was it easier or harder or how would you describe it?

VIKTOR HOVLAND: Pretty much with the wind, I thought it was going to be about what it was today. But it still wasn't quite as silly, if you will, compared to, you know, I feel like the last few weekends of this tournament. There's no friction on the greens. So there could be, even if it's only blowing 15 to 20, when the greens just have no greenness or moisture to them, then it's just, you know, it's kind of, then it's really, really hard.

Q. Scottie made an interesting point a couple days ago that he shot 75, 75 on the weekend and moved to like two spots down on the leaderboard. Knowing what this course does to you or performs on the weekend, how wide open is this right now?

VIKTOR HOVLAND: Yeah, I think a lot of stuff can happen. Because you can go out there and career it and shoot 5-, 6-, 7-under par if you're really on it and things go your way. You have to get certain bounces go your way. So you can still shoot low and make some birdies.

But at the same time you can hit good shots and end up over the green where you're dead. Or you get a weird gust and it ends up in the water. Or you plug it in the lip of the bunkers out here. So, I mean, there's just a lot of things that can happen.

Q. Aces, there's a part of chance and luck involved when it goes in the hole. But how much is it reflective maybe of the control you feel with your golf swing right now at this point in the season?

VIKTOR HOVLAND: No, I definitely feel like my game is getting back to kind of what it used to be, where I didn't have to really worry too much about where, what my ball striking was doing. It was more about strategizing and trying to chip and putt the best that I could.

So I feel like I'm kind of getting back to that. Still some work to be done, but, yeah, I feel like I'm getting some control back.

Q. Where was the non-tournament ace?

VIKTOR HOVLAND: The non-tournament ace was in the practice round at Scarlet Course for the Korn Ferry Tour finals. It was, I believe it was like 13 or 14 -- 12 or 13. The par-3 on the downhill.

The other one, my first one was at East Lake, number 11, in the college tournament.

Q. So you never made an ace in Norway.

VIKTOR HOVLAND: No.

Q. Do they have a deal where if someone makes an ace in Norway they got to buy drinks for everybody?

VIKTOR HOVLAND: That's usually not a thing.

Q. It's an American thing.

VIKTOR HOVLAND: It's an American thing.

Q. Does it make any sense to you? Shouldn't everybody be buying you a drink?

VIKTOR HOVLAND: Well I guess it's, if you see someone make a hole-in-one and you have game against them, you're not super thrilled to see the other guy make an ace. But if you're getting drinks out of it, then everyone else kind of gets more ramped up. So, yeah, I'm for it. It's a good deal.