FEDEX ST. JUDE CHAMPIONSHIP

August 17, 2024

Viktor Hovland

TPC Southwind

Quick Quotes

Q. What was working best for you today?

VIKTOR HOVLAND: Off the tee and into the greens, it was very good. I put myself in nice positions off the tee and hit a lot of greens, gave myself a lot of looks. I would have liked to have put a ball a little bit closer, but it was very solid from start to finish.

Q. Are you seeing more and more good things out of your swing as you talked about, still maybe a couple loose swings but more and more good?

VIKTOR HOVLAND: Yeah, it's like a lot of the good swings are -- I'm seeing those more often. The ball is starting to behave like I'm expecting it to. Even the misses, like some of the bad shots I can feel that I'm still reverting back to old habits, but the misses are way smaller than they used to be. Before they would be off the planet, whereas now it's manageable and I can make a nice up-and-down or make a long putt or whatever it is.

It's a lot easier to play golf when you kind of see the dispersion pattern is starting to shrink.

Q. Some guys were picking up mud earlier in the week. How much is this golf course drying out and getting faster?

VIKTOR HOVLAND: Yeah, there was no mud balls today. As you said, a couple -- had a couple the first couple days, but nothing too crazy. You would have maybe a couple specks here and there. But nothing that would hurt you too badly. Right now it's getting really firm.

Q. With all the water on this golf course, does it teach as much about your game as you need to know, in terms of going bogey-free around this golf course today?

VIKTOR HOVLAND: Yeah, I did a good job of just being patient on a lot of the holes, especially where there was water. I kind of took my medicine and at least picked a spot that was pretty far away from the pin and actually pushed a couple of shots, like on 11 I hit it a little bit closer than what I was aiming, and even on 15, as well, I pushed a 50-degree that ended up pretty close or on the right side of the pin. So a couple spots like that.

But at least when there's water in play and the pins are tucked so close, I'm trying to give myself a decent amount of margin because that's just what you can do. You get a little cute and be aggressive, you can easily dump it in the water, and you just can't do that out here.

Q. Just one bogey in your last 36 holes. What's been the key to your consistency the last two rounds?

VIKTOR HOVLAND: Yeah, just hitting it a lot better. Yesterday I felt like I made a few more good up-and-downs, and I just made a bunch of putts, and then I also hit a few approach shots that were really close to the pin, so I made a lot of birdies, but I also had to scramble for pars.

Today I didn't really feel like I had to scramble all day. It was just on 3, I hit it in the greenside bunker and had a terrible lie and hit it over the green and had to make maybe a six, seven-footer for par, and that was about it. Otherwise the whole day I was just kind of two-putting or putting from the fringe or just made easy pars. It's nice to play stress-free golf again.

Q. You shoot 63 yesterday, you're going to need something like that tomorrow with how Hideki is playing. You started the day four back, probably going to be six back. How do you attack tomorrow, and is this one of those days where you just tip your cap to Hideki and try to catch him tomorrow?

VIKTOR HOVLAND: Yeah, it's super impressive stuff. It was not easy out there today. It was a decent amount of wind and it feels like fairways are firming up a little bit, harder to hit the fairways, and with some of those pin locations being tucked pretty close to the edges, it's hard to be pretty aggressive into some of those flags.

He's obviously making it work, and I kind of tried to play just reasonable and not safe but just good strategy the whole way. I didn't make that many putts. If I would have got my putter going like I did yesterday, probably would have been a very similar score.

Just got to try to get the most out of my game tomorrow, and we'll see what happens.

Q. You moved yourself comfortably inside the cut line at this point. Have the goals started to change for you at this point?

VIKTOR HOVLAND: Yeah, now I'm actually starting to see some good shots, and now I've played two really good rounds in a row. I feel like I can do the same thing again tomorrow. It wasn't like I just got super lucky out there and had everything going my way the last couple of days. Maybe a little bit so yesterday, but today I feel like I proved to myself that I can play really consistent golf and go out here and shoot 4- or 5-under and not get that much out of my game.