It's the Son of a Butcher podcast. You guys know the drill. We come to you every Wednesday, but this week it's a special occasion for the pod. We just went over two million downloads and I can't thank all of you who listen each and every week for making that happened. I'm still blown away that I do a podcast and we've got two million downloads. I mean, it's
just it's mind boggling to me. But the support and when I'm on the road and when I see people at tournaments, they'll come up and say, hey, big fan of the pod. So thank each and every one of you for listening. And given that it's a big week for the pod, I figured we'd get a big guest on. Victor Hovelin is our guest this week. World number four, the reigning FedEx Cup champion, and I think Vics easily one of the top five best players in the game
of golf. He has big time game. I think there are majors in his future, and I think there were multiple majors possibly in his future. I think he is going to be around for a very very long time. And it was incredibly cool for me to be able to sit down and talk to him and kind of pick his brain about the way he plays, about how he goes about playing. I love Vic's attitude. He's always smiling,
he's always laughing. We talk about the Ryder Cup, we talk about you know, where golf is, professional golf is in twenty twenty four. But really, I think if you get an opportunity to sit down and talk to a player who, like I said, I think he's one of the best players in the game, and I think he can beat anybody on any kind of golf course, that's how good he is. So a very very cool interview
with Vic that's coming up. But before we get to that interview, let's take a moment to thank our friends at Cobra Golf and talk about their new driver for twenty twenty four. You've heard me talk about it. Cobra has their new Dark Speed driver, which is a perfect combination of ground bait making, aerodynamics, precision, PWR bridge waiting, an AI designed hot face technology that delivers transcendent speed. I love it. I've talking to a couple of players
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it out. So now let's get to a very very cool interview with Like I said, he's one of the best players in the game, he's a fan favorite, and big things are going to continue to happen to Victor Hovlin. Take a listen, Vick, you had a unbelievable year in twenty twenty three. I think the stat that jumps out no missed cuts. How have you managed since you've turned pro. I mean, you've really become one of the most consistent
golfers in the sport. Is it something that you're conscious of, is it something that you're trying to do?
Yeah, I mean obviously I value consistency a lot. Obviously you want to win tournaments, and I think professional golf really tailors to the times you play your best and that's when you got to make the most out of it. But I think it's just a lot more, a lot less stressful if I show up every week just knowing that, Okay, my game's in a good spot. And I think the fact that my short game improved so much last year, Now I didn't even have to hit it my best and I could still kind of make nice up and
downs and just keep momentum going. Before I would not miss very many cuts just because my ball striking was so consistent. But I still kind of had a little asterix there with the short game. But now I feel like my ball striking hasn't been quite as good, but my short game is kind of made up for that and then some. So yeah, I just think making better decisions, not playing maybe as risky as I did when I first came out on tour, just knowing when to push
and when to not push. I think I'm making a lot less mistakes, you know, just simple mistakes, short sighting, miss yeah, missing long on a green where you can't, stuff like that. So I really value not missing cuts and playing for four rounds. I do prefer.
That that it's an art to learning on tour when to play offense when you need to play offense, and when to play defense when you need to play defense. I think you mentioned you came out as a rookie. You can get into that trap of saying, Okay, maybe i've made a double, I've made a couple of buggies. Okay, now I need to go on offense. But sometimes the golf course that you're playing doesn't allow you, or isn't really it's not the right play. So you said you
learned that. You know, you've been on tour now three four years, you're learning how to play. But when you come out on tour, how do you when did you kind of figure out, Okay, what I could get away with maybe in the past and making some dicey decisions or maybe making some really really aggressive decisions. At the level that I'm playing at right now professional golf, it
just doesn't allow me to do that. When was that kind of kind of light bulb moment where you went, Okay, if I can start maybe just being a little bit more conservative, because I think the opposite is what everyone thinks. Everyone watching professional golf and everyone trying to get to the level that you're at, thinks that you all are getting there by just being firing at every flag, going for every pin, going for every power into And there
really is an art to playing professional golf. It's just not your golf swing.
Yeah, and I definitely had to learn it in the hard way. I think some of it is sometimes I'll still play offensive or aggressive just because, like I want to, I think it's fun. But there is like I've gotten into poker a little bit, so knowing the numbers and the and the just.
A likely and the percentages the game is because the game poker. It's interesting that I'd heard that you had gotten really big into poker. I used to teach when I lived in Vegas back in the day. I used to teach Huckleberry Seed. Huck Seed won the World Poker Championship, and he was like a savant. He was trying to play golf and stuff like that. So the idea of playing poker. How do you think playing poker helps you
on the golf course? Do you think that's been one of the things where you've gone, Okay, do I really need to make this play right now or I'm gonna get my par five chances? With my lane? There are some pins that I can attack maybe on the back night. But that's a hard thing to learn, and it's a hard thing to learn in the timeframe that you've learned it.
I think, yeah, I'd say it's kind of a double edged sword, because sometimes there is a value to being kind of young and dumb, having no scar tissue, and just I'm just gonna hit driver everywhere. I hit it straight, so why not just hit it here, even though mathematically it might not be a great play in the long term.
But sometimes just not even being aware of that or putting those thoughts into your head, you have this just overconfidence and you you know that, Okay, I'm a straight I'm a straight hitter with the driver, so I'm just gonna hit it everywhere, and most of the time it works. But then when you start delving deeper into the stats and Eduardo Molinari that I work with, he's my stats guy, He's really helped me just kind of put things into
perspective a little bit more. And uh, but I did kind of struggle a little bit when I didn't feel like my swing was quite where it should should be at the time when you start thinking about the percentages and you're like, okay, it's kind of a fifty to fifty play. I could hit driver or three would, and then you maybe kind of start to second guess things
a little bit. There's a little bit of doubt that creeps into the decision making, and that is something that you don't really take into account when you're just purely looking at the mathematics. So it's like, if it's a really close decision, I try to just let my emotions and my feels trumph the decision. But if it's like a sixty or if it's like a seventy thirty or sixty five thirty five, then you know, things are pretty
clear cut as what you're supposed to do. But yeah, I think just in the whole, it's the more information you have, the better a decision you can make. And I think that's just good to know and see.
Obviously, I work with two guys, you know, Brooks and DJ to where they're the opposite. They want as little information as possible so that they can kind of react and be an athlete. You're you're Caddie Shane Knight, who I think is one of the best guys on tour. He's someone that you know, I've always enjoyed you know, spending time with it. I don't know if you know the story, but he came up to me at Memorial when you were getting ready to turn pro, and he said, hey, man,
can I talk to you? Because I used to spend a lot of time with Shae because he caddied for Sean O'Hare and and Jimmy Walker. I used to work with my dad and I they played a ton of practice, so I spent a lot of time around Shaye. And she said, listen, can I talk to you. We're at Memorial, man. He said, Victor Hovelin is going to turn pro. He's asked me if I want to work with him. I worked with him at, you know, in a couple of the majors, and he said, you know, you know, what
do you think? And I was just like, dude, it's the kid's stud It's a huge opportunity. And he was like, do you really think he's going to be You're a great player. I said, listen, he's top five in the world. Good. And so that partnership with Shay when you guys are looking at golf courses, because we get asked that so much vic from players trying to play. When you guys are going into practice rounds and you're looking at golf
tournaments and the majors, it becomes more heightened. But what are the things that you and Shae are looking at? What are the things that you're looking at when you look at a golf course and you say, okay, even if you played that golf course before, you're going out there in the practice ones and the conversations between you and Shae are okay, obviously, what we're gonna hit off the tee, what we're doing. But how do you all approach kind of charting around to golf. Do you do
that as much as he does? Or does he kind of shepherd you around? He does the work and say hey, I think this is the play and then you kind of, as the player, either listen or don't.
Yeah. He he's a very like I consider him a really good friend of mine. But he's also very very professional. He goes out there early and walks the walks, the chorus, and he does a very just puts a lot of
work in to prepare. So when I play my first practice round, he's already seen the course and he knows kind of where I need to be, what clubs to hit, and then it just becomes a discussion of Okay, I think the conditions are gonna be this in a tournament, They're maybe gonna get a little firmer, or it might
get wetter because of the rain that's coming. Wind might switch, and then certain pin placements, like it might be a short part four where we're gonna hit a driver, but if the wind switches it goes to down wind, they put a front pin. Now we can't get the wedge to stop, so we need to hit less off the tea, you know, just simple things like that, and then I might have some stats from Eduardo if we've played the
course before. Okay, these pimplacements generally play a little bit easier if you're if you hit driver or three wood off the tee. It just yeah, it all depends. So having a lot of that information even before you go into a practice round is really valuable, I think. And then he might say, hey, I think this is the better play, but whatever I feel at the time, then
that's sort of going to trumpet. But we're we're always having a discussion and trying to manage the game plan accordingly to what's what's the best player.
When you look at golf courses fit on tour. Obviously, you play a bunch of golf courses over the course of the year. There's going to be courses that you like. But for a golf course that you play that you like, what does that mean from when you look at a golf course you say, Okay, I've played this golf I really like that golf course. Give me an example of a golf course on tour that you really really like, and give me some reasons and examples as to why you like that golf course.
Yeah, just got back from Riviera. I really like that golf course. And I tend to play pretty well in Florida, So Florida golf courses tend to fit me very well. And I think generally that's because I'm a good ball striker. Off the tee, I hit my driver pretty straight, so I'm going to gain an advantage. Because now I do think I have an advantage Riviera because you still got to hit it pretty well out there, but there's not there aren't any penalty shots out there now no water.
And you've got to hit it mirleles offline on the hit stretched. Yeah, on the back nine, there's that stretch where you get hit out of bounds left and on the front nine, if you really rinse on to the right, I mean you've got to hit really you're right. I've never thought about that. There is there aren't any there's no hazards now Riviera, which is very very rare. The only time you really see that nowadays is if we go to the Open Championship and you play one of
the inland you know, where there's just no water. There might be a couple of streams, you know St Andrews has the stream that goes across the first but a lot of the Open Championship golf goes. You're right, there's no hazards. So a golf course with no hazards, it's a different kind of look and feel.
Yeah, it is. And that's why I think like Riviera is just a it's one plot of land that they can't really expend it anymore. And it's been around for so long and you still make that golf coursus as it is with no penalty shots. That's impressive and it's not stupid. You know, it's fair. If you play well, you're going to shoot a good score. If you're if you're missing fairways and missing greens, you're gonna have a hard time. So I'll like just straightforward fair golf courses.
Now Florida golf courses are a little bit different because you have some water. You generally have some ob kind of closer to the course. But that's where I think I have an advantage because if I'm hitting fairway more often than the other guys that I'm playing against, They're going to be more heavily penalized by missing the fairway,
So I have an advantage there. And generally when the greens get firm, I can, you know, just the value of hitting greens go up, and yeah, especially if I'm hitting it nicely, I'm gonna be able to separate myself there. But I think that's generally the case for the bigger tournaments, you know, majors. If you go to Memorial, for example,
they're gonna have kind of that style of golf. It's going to be long, it's gonna be narrow ish fairways and thick rough So if you can hit it longest, straight and head greens, that's that's usually a pretty good recipe.
So Vic, the obvious question for everyone listening is what's it like to be able to stand up and have the confidence because that is one of the strengths of your game is the ability to drive it as well as you drive it to not really you don't really
curve your golf ball enough. I mean a lot. So that must the look of a hole for someone like yourself that has so much confidence with the driver has got to be very different from someone that doesn't have a lot of confidence, because there's you know, there's parts of you know, if you think of you want it at east Lake, but there's some holes there to where you know, like that, like what is it after the par three on the back was at fifteen fifteen? You know that if it kind of that dog leg up
there in the corner. But if you've got the confidence to say, listen, okay, I'm gonna fly the bunkers and I'm gonna get it up up into that neck and it's maybe a little bit flatter there. When you have the confidence that you have in the driver, you're able to say, okay, I know if I can get it in that area, maybe it's a little bit flatter than
it is here. If I don't hit it as far, it must mentally it must give you a tremendous amount of confidence going into tournaments because the driver is is a weapon and you, as the player know it is.
Yeah. I will say the last few months, I haven't swung it as well as I would like, and the ball has been going two ways a little bit. And just from experience, it's a lot more stressful playing golf
when you don't know exactly where the ball's gonna go. Now, nobody knows exactly where the ball's gonna go, but I would say when I would play my best golfer on a string, Yeah, and it's so liberating, especially when he gets to those tighter holes, like let's say there's water down the left side, and I can just aim it kind of down the left side and just pump one and fade it off of it, and it's not like
I'm hitting a week's lice over there. It's still a powerful just cut off the water, and I know when I hit that shot. When I get nervous, I just play a slightly bigger cut. The ball's almost never going to go left. Now. It might be in the right side of the fairway, might be in the middle of the fairway right rough, but it's never going left. As I'm getting ready to play a bay Hill now in a couple of weeks, I just think of, for example,
number eleven out there. If you remember that hole, you've got water down the left.
Side, and you can just stand up and know that, okay, left is out of play.
Yeah.
And it also I think it allows you to then And it's the same thing we're always trying to tell people that play to make a conservative, aggressive swing, not reckless. There's a difference between being reckless with the driver and saying, listen, I drive it well, so I can be aggressive. I can still be a conservative off the tee, but I can make a conservative, committed swing here, so that that'll eleventh hole at Bayhill water all the way down the
left hand side. You've got the confidence just stand up and say, listen, I know it's not going to go left. I can make a really committed swing and just stand up and rip it.
Yep. Whereas a lot of guys I've seen it hit four irons, three irons, hybrids, three woods, yeah, and then they have Yeah, you got more rooms, so you're probably gonna hit it in the water less. But now you've got seven six iron, maybe even five iron into that green, and those pins on the left side are I mean, it's almost impossible to get to it when you're hitting
that long of a club. Whereas if I'm really confident with my driver, and I think most of the time, i think I've hit driver, hit that fairway a lot, and then I have a fifty degree maybe a pitching wedge of max into that green, and now you turn
a hard hole into a birdie hole. So just doing that consistently, especially around a place like that, you turn a beast of a course into a place where, Okay, if I make a few putts and and play nicely, I can shoot five six under and yeah, that place is treating me pretty nicely.
Over the years, there are players that dominate through power, physical speed. You're not someone that people look at and go, Okay, he's a killer. He's dominant. But do you feel like the ability to hit the driver the way you have pretty much your your whole career is also kind of a differentiator down the stretch. When you're playing with someone. You guys are in a big tournament, you guys are
kind of tied for the lead and stuff. There get to be tight holes where you have the confidence to say, listen, I'm pulling I'm pulling the chief, I'm taking the head cover off, I'm pulling driver. If you're hitting first and it's back nine on Sunday, that's also kind of a differentiator, kind of a separator to say to the guy you're playing with, Listen, we might be tied, but you've got the iron out and I'm just gonna go ahead here
and hit driver. Do you feel that's a way to quietly intimidate the other players by saying, listen, you know I'm gonna hit driver here. I'm a good driver of the golf ball. If you're gonna give up forty fifty yards here because you don't feel like you can drive it down there. Another one seventeen at the Tour Championship. If you've got the confidence to just start it over the bunkers, now hammer the driver down there, you get
it much much closer. Because if you don't have the confidence on that whole and you're gonna take three wood or an iron off the tee, you miss it a little. You'd be on a little bit of an upslope and not But if you've got the confidence, like you said, to just take it over the bunkers on seventeen at East like and get it down there down the stretch. That's gotta be a differentiator to where you're saying somebody that you're playing with, Hey, you're gonna have to come get me.
Yeah, until you double cross it and you're behind a tree. But yeah, most of the time, it's like I'm pulling the driver because I feel confident and I know it's the right play, and more often than not, I'm gonna hit you know, my missus arn is bad to where I'm gonna make a huge mistake now might end up in the right rof, But how much am I really losing compared to the guy that's pulling iron or three wood and he's sixty yards behind me, It's like, there's
not that big of a difference. I stole might be ahead from the right rough because I'm hitting a gap play shin there. So I feel like that's you know, if I've driven it really well generally, and that week, I think the other player knows that, Okay, he's hitting
driver and he's probably not gonna give it away. If I was playing against the guy that does a sprayer, yeah, you know, and he pulls driver, I might go, oh, okay, let's let's see where this one ends up, you know, and then I might hit three wood or something less
to depending on where he hits his shot. But i'd i'd least like to think that when I pull driver, the other guy's thinking, Okay, he's probably gonna hit a pretty nice shot and he's going to set up a birdie or at least a par So I now need to make a birdie to beat him or to tie him. It's not like, oh, he's gonna give it away now, So I might do it somewhere else, but not off the tee.
You mentioned we've been talking about something that you have tremendous confidence in your driver. By your own admission, when you turned pro, the short game was I mean, it was a liability and it wasn't it was something that everybody could see. You could see it. You had even when you won in Puerto Rico you laid the sawd over one a pretty easy one too. How nervous when you before you last year the work you did with
Joe Mayo, the chipping and stuff. But before that, how how nervous is as one of the best players in the world, would you get over a chip shot. And what were the ones that made you the most? Were they the easy ones that made you the most nervous, or they were they were the tough ones.
Well, it's like I never I knew I didn't have a great short game, but in college I thought it was it was O K.
You realize how bad you're Yeah, pretty much.
But I never had like the yips or I'm like, oh my god, I don't know how this is gonna go. It's just like, ah, this is a hard shot. It's into the grain. So usually when I was into the grain and and I had to elevated and stop it quickly, I'm like, Okay, this is impossible, you.
Know, unless you hit the flop. Yeah, exactly, and then you're bringing danger and double body into play.
Yeah. So I'd be like, okay, well my reasoning was, and I would tell the guys on the team It's like, yeah, that was a bad chip, but it was bad that I even ended up here. So I'm just gonna go to the range instead of figuring this out, you know.
And so you your your mentality was a lot like a lot of junior golfers, and I'll I'll just basically I'm bad at this, so I'll just go make what I'm good at even better.
Yeah.
The problem is, I think that works up until a certain level, until you get on tour and then you see the short games of the guys like Patrick Reid, of the guys of the wedge players, guys like Jason Day, the really really classy, I mean jordan' spiece's short games feel pretty filthy around the greens. JT's become a great wedge player. So what did you learn and what has been the fix that that has really helped you? Because I mean, I'm watching you on the second group out
at the Ryder Cup. You chip one in from fifty feet. I'm down on the first hole. We hear the roar. I'm like, I'm like, I guarantee you VIX chipped this in, Garrett, and then they showed it on the screen. You chipped in fifty but that was a shot two years ago. You didn't know how to hit from that position. So everybody, if you haven't seen it, you can go back. But okay, you've missed the green. You're just off the green on the first hole at Marcos Simoni, it's like fifty feet.
You've got to go over some rough and then you've got it's a little bit down the slope. You've got to stop it. I said two three years ago, you you didn't have that start. So before in that situation, what would you have been trying to do? And I guarantee you in the situation that you're in, you're like, I can make this. Yeah, So what would you have been thinking before over a chip shot like the one in the first hole at the Ryder cop you and
Ludwig you first, your second group out. It's early. You guys know you can set the tone in the past. What type of shot would you have hit? And what type of shot did you hit when you hooped it?
Yeah? I mean I would have grabbed the putter right away, And to be honest, I think most guys would have pulled putter there. I don't think it's a bad play because I think consistently you're probably gonna hit it to ten feet and I would have just given loving the ten footer for par there. But I just I just saw it, Okay, if I can chip this, hit a low kind of bump into the slope that I had in front of me, and then check it was gonna have less speed going down the hill than it would
if I putted it. So I figured, okay, if I chip it and hit a good shot, now I can suddenly hit it, you know, I can maybe stop it close to the hole. And as it came off the face, it did exactly what I wanted it to do, came out a little well skipped and checked.
When did you know it was? When did you think you'd made it?
Well, as it was going down the hill, I thought it was a pretty nice shot. I'm like, okay, this this couldn be good. And then it's just started. It kept breaking and kept breaking and kept breaking, and I wasn't even thinking. I just reacted to it and I started walking when it was probably the six seven eight nine feet out, and when it went in, it was, uh yeah, it was just like wow, what just happened?
As there were roars in golf. There are roars at majors, you know the type of there's a Tiger roar. You know, when Tiger's doing something, you can you kind of know when Rory's on the course and he's starting to go, you can hear it. But then there are roars in the Ryder Cup, and then there are the noise the crowd makes when you're playing in Europe as a European the sound was unbelievable. And then the sound from the first t where everybody went nuts too. Now the Ryder Cup,
your first one was it whistling straights. It wasn't great for the European side. You didn't win any your matches. You go three to one and one at at marcos Amoni. What was the difference and how were those experiences different for you?
Yeah, obviously being a rookie and with a whistling straits, it was tough. We didn't have any European fans there because of COVID and uh being in the United States. It was It was definitely a daunting task. And I think because I had some holes in my game, meaning a short game. My ball striking was very good that week. But you're just not gonna win miss greens. Yeah, you're gonna miss greens. And you're just not gonna win matches in four balls or even for sums if you're not
making putts and making easy up and downs. And I think when you're just in that setting where your anxiety or you're super nervous in that moment and you have holes in your game. They there's nowhere to hide. And I think you're just going into an event like that not as confident, or you're not the best version of yourself. And I think at Marcus Simone, I just won the FedEx Cup, I know three times.
You had an unbelievable year. So the confidence level going in, you know a little bit more what to expect for everyone listening. Everybody talks about the Ryder Cup the pressure.
But.
Just as a coach, it's heightened. You can feel it. You can you can feel that it's different you as a player. When you got into the first Ryder Cup at Whistling Straight, when did you kind of go, okay, wow, this is this is different, I mean the and it is a different type of pressure too, because normally you're
just playing for yourself. All of a sudden, you know, for the first couple of days, You've got a partner now and you've got to think about I don't want to leave this guy ten feet and stuff like that. So the first year versus the second year, you're it is a little bit more, okay, I know a little bit more of what to expect. I thought that that Hazel team was going to be the breakout for you.
I just thought everything you've done up to that point, I was like, this is going to be kind of the coming out for you, because we see that every two years there's someone in a Ryder Cup that steps up and everybody goes, wow, we look at him differently. Now. I think the performance you had at at in Rome this this year has been that moment for you. You were one of the guys that were It was you, It was Rory, it was Tommy, but you were one of the guys that they John Rahm was one. You were.
Every team has those four to three guys that everybody on the team knows that they expect points from, you know, the media of the press. I mean, was it somewhat liberating and freeing you going into Marcus Simoni going okay, I'm top three in the world right now. There are no real better players in the world than me. We're playing in Europe now, now I can kind of almost kind of show off how good I am, as opposed to go, okay, let me just kind of see how this week goes.
Yeah, it was more as you explained, like because of that confidence, I'm stepping up on that first d and thinking instead of oh, I better not mess up or just try to make a decent swing at it, don't do this, don't do that, It's more like, Okay, let's enjoy this and let's show off kind of the things that I've been working on this year, and let me prove myself the level of play that I can show and I'm gonna do it right now. So it was more just like I was so much more at ease.
I was confident, I was enjoying the moment a lot more, whereas as Whistling Straits, I knew I had some holes in there and all the people that are there are rooting for you to mess up. So it's like it's it's just tough to get over that. It's not impossible, because I think some guys really like that pressure. But you've got to have the foundations to back that up. You can't just be Okay, I'm gonna show you and really believe it if you don't have the skill sets
to back it up. And I just didn't think I had it at the time. So that was really nice to to kind of prove that.
In Roam this summer, you played two of the matches with ludvig Olberg. How good do you think this kid can be? Because I mean, I he I watched a lot of his match I was doing some TV and then he played Brooks on Sunday. And even though Brooks, you know, beat him, he he has a he has a toolbox that looks fairly full in what he can and can't do.
Yeah. We I mean we talked about driving earlier on in the in the in the in the talk here, and yeah, he he's like he hits it pretty far, hits it pretty high, and just does the same thing on repeat. It seemed like I haven't played with him that much since, but in Rome it was Yeah, even in the practice round, No, he didn't. And that's what's Uh,
It's pretty impressive and pretty cool to watch. But at the same time you can still see that there's and I don't mean this disrespective, but like he's got clear improvements in his game.
Peter Hanson, who's his coach, who played on the European Tour for a long time, played in a Ryder Cup. He was at the Ryder Cup the Miracle at Medina. He was walking the eighteen the last round where Brooks was playing Ludwig and we were talking, we were walking inside the ropes and he was like, listen, man, this kid has a lot to learn. Yeh, you're watching him and you're seeing how much success he's had that week.
But I think that just goes to show that for someone like you, you know how good you have to be, you know how consistent you have to be, and you yourself have turned pro knowing that you had some holes in your game which you fixed, and you know what are the I guess how does he go about getting better?
And I think everybody's trying to get better? How do you go about getting better as a player and say, Okay, I've got to try and improve this part, but it can't take away from things that have made me get here and made me a dominant player.
Yeah. I mean it's hard for me to kind of evaluate his game when I haven't seen it. You need a bigger sample size to really read into this year.
I think we'll get a better idea of where we think he's going to be in three to five years.
But I'd say playing with him in the Ryder Cup, now, the greens were a little bit slower in Marcus Simone, but I'd say, you know, when you were a little bit nervous and those lag puts. The speed probably needs to get a little bit better, and there's probably some like decision making stuff kind of like what I did when I first came out on tour. I'm firing at some pins and not don't really know what side to miss it on, and I would miss it on some sides that are just death.
You can't make it. You just you're getting over to that situation and you're like, I cannot make.
Bubb from here, yeah exactly. And we're all like, we're all gonna hit bad shots. Were hitting bad shots is fine, but there are some some places where you can't hit a bad shot and miss it there, you know.
So because you're gonna struggle to make a bogey.
Exactly, Whereas like there's some And that's one of the things that I think I improved on a lot last year. I would have nice tournaments where for nine holes straight, I didn't feel like I hit a single good shot, but I would still get around and even par one under par because I just missed into right spots. I would make it easy up and down, and then maybe on a par five I would wedge it close and make the.
Pot with your type of game, bick with the weapon you have with the driver, how straight you can hit the how far you can hit the driver? And ball striking is one of your calling cards. You know now that Okay, I don't necessarily have to play that. I mean, is it that you realize now, I don't have to play that great all the time. If I can just tread water, I've got my par fives that I can take advantage of. And over four days, I'm going to have a day where if my ball striking is the
way it normally is, I'm gonna have that day. And you do that. That's one of the things I love about your game is you are every single week you're gonna have that round where it's like it's almost like you can bank on it. You're gonna shoot sixty five
one of the days of the three days. And one of the things I really like about your game, Vic, and I think one of the reasons why you've been so consistent is you have that Saturday round where you're not afraid to go, Okay, let me go shoot sixty four on Saturday now and get myself into one of these life that is you do it a lot, and I don't think you that is not normal for rookies and guys that are this new you have that knack on Saturday to be one of those guys that just
goes okay, you know, I'm gonna shoot sixty four sixty six on the weekend and see where it goes. That's an art and that's something that not a lot of players can do all the time.
Yeah, I think that's a that's a good thing you're touching on there, because I definitely would psych myself out a little bit when I first came out. Is that you have an afternoon tea time and then you see Thursday morning, some guy posts sixty four and now the wind starts blowing in the afternoon and you're like, man, I'm one under part. I'm kind of playing nice. I'm not making too many putts, but I'm seven shots back.
So instead of before then you can press yeah, and then your shirtsire yourself and you make it a dumb bogie you would never make, and now you're eight shots back, and it's like, this is a seventy two whole tournament. The chance of this guy shooting sixty four to the first round the chances of him winning maybe on Sunday is you know, not as high as you would think. And if he.
Shoots four rounds in the sixties, you say, yeah, it was your week. You shoot four rounds in the sixties round here, you're probably gonna win.
Yeah, exactly. But I think the mindset then turn into especially when I was playing better and just getting more experience, It's funny how you think better when you play better.
It helps, it helps, But isn't that interesting thing that when you're playing and you're not the first player that has ever said that when you're playing bad, your decision making process is always terrible, right, It's very rarely when you're playing bad or you making really good, smart, clear focused decisions on the golf course, and when you are playing great and you have a chance to win tournaments,
when the pressure is the most. It seems to me, as an outsider looking in, that's when I've watched some of the players I've been lucky enough to work with. It's like when the when the when the mindset is the clearest and the decision making process is the best, and you would think that it would just be so yeah, oh yeah, obviously, let me just think good when I'm playing bad, and it'll just solve everything. But it's hard to do that, right.
Yeah, I think it's just I think a lot of it comes back to just the confidence that you have inside. It's like you know that, oh, I just double cross this driver and I'm making a double bogie here. That's gonna piss you off more than if you're playing sweet, because you know you can. You can make that ground up.
So you're gonna handle the bad shot a lot better and you're gonna make better decisions because you know it's the right play and you know that, Okay, I'm playing nice, the right play to this hole is not to go at the pen. I need to hit it to thirty feet and then par is a good score and I can actually make that thirty flitter. Sometimes if you're if you have momentum, you feel good, you have good speed
on the greens, you can make that thirty flitter. You turn night into a birdie and now it's just game on. Whereas you make that double bogie, now you're pissed off. The next hole, you know it's middle of the green, you go for it, You short side yourself, and now you're even more pissed. So it's like, I think it comes down to just a confidence in your game if you know that. Okay, I'm yeah, this was one bad hole out of the seventy two holes. It's gonna sting.
You can't get that, you can't get those shots back. But at least let's get right on track on the next shot, and let's make a good swing and a good decision, and let's just get this roundback on track, and then maybe on Sunday at the end, maybe you have a chance to win. And I mean, I just think back to when we played the WGC in where was it in in Florida? That one COVID year we're calling one concession is a concession. Yeah, And I made
a quad on the last hole on on Saturday. I think I was in like fourth or fifth place and made a quad the last hole, and yeah, it was way way out of it. But then I played really nice on Saturday and even Sunday and finished second. So it's like you could easily just let that whole ruin your whole week and that was that was that term. And I did so well for so long and then you make a couple of bad decisions and you're out
of it. But because that felt good with my game, I kept on pushing and just made a lot of berties and then on Sunday, actually I think I was ty for the lead there with a few holes to go. So it's just it's hard to think that way in the moment, but when you look back on it, you're like, man, I had a good chance to win even with that quad. So it's like you're never completely out of it, if you know, if you keep playing well and make good decisions.
The other thing I love about the way you approach golf, but also the way you approach life. You're always smiling on the golf course. You seem to have a very very positive attitude, seem to be able to let things kind of not outwardly like I've never seen you throw a club or break a club or kick your bag
or anything like that. I know that bad shots affect you, but the mental ass the attitude that you have on the golf course, how did you have You always had that because you always seem to be one that you're always smiling on the driving range, You're always smiling after the rounds. It doesn't really regardless of what you shoot. You always seem outwardly to be in a good mood. And I think the thing I love most about your attitude on the golf course is when you make bad swings, stuff,
you laugh a lot. You're kind of like, there's a bad shot, You're you're human and stuff. Have you always been able to kind of have that type of attitude on the golf course?
Uh, well, I'd say I probably got you fooled a little bit, but well it's just like, yeah.
But I think that's a huge thing, Victor. You have people fooled. So that listen, if you're playing with somebody and you're you're in a you're you're coming down to stretch and you can see them getting more and more agitated, and you can see, you know, we've all seen, you know, last week was you know, a great example in LA At one point right around that when the leaders made the tour, there were five guys sided for the lead, right everybody was all of a sudden tied for the lead.
And three holes later, three of the guys that were tied for the lead look like they're shooting ninety and their heads down and they're throwing clubs and stuff like that, and so I think it's a positive that outwardly your opponents don't see that you're getting down on yourself.
Yeah, I think it just I guess I'm not super proud of how I reacted in kind of recent tournaments because my swing hasn't kind of been where I wanted, and it's it's so frustrating for me because like competing and playing and winning, that's fun, but I think it's more fun actually hitting the shots that I want to just the mastery of the game itself. And it pisses me off when I try to hit a certain shot and I'm not accomplishing it, So that really just makes
me mad. So I could be really mad at home practicing just out on the golf course, and if I'm trying to hit a certain shot and I can't hit it, that just irks me. So that will get me really really mad. And sometimes I'm in that situation out of the tournament, and I'll react that way. I'll react in a poor way. But I think it's easier for me to like And I've told multiple people to explain kind of how my mind works, and I know it doesn't maybe make that much sense, but when I'm in a tournament.
Obviously the score is what matters. But I would much rather shoot seventy three and make two double bogies. And the two double bogies that I made were perfect swings. It was the shot that I wanted to hit, but it was the wrong club where I got a bad bounce,
went over the green or hit or sprinkler head. And when ob or whatever it might be, I'd rather take the seventy three or seventy four doing that than shooting sixty nine and not hit a single good shot and just really hacked it around, because that doesn't give me a lot of confidence even though.
You know, the sixty nine still counts, right, it does at the end of the week, I know you still got you even if you shoot sixty nine of the bass truck's bad back, you still get to take the score.
I know. But it's like, that's just kind of how my mind works, and i'd like to that's why you're good. Yeah. So so then when I'm playing well and I'm making a mistake, Yeah, it pisses me off in the moment because I know how valuable those shots are. But at the same time, I can I can look back and Okay, that was just a bad club I miss, I misjudged the wind or whatever it might be. It was just
a bad, bad swing at the wrong time. But I know that my fundamentals and what I'm doing right now is good, and I'm probably gonna play good tomorrow because i know the fundamentals are good. But it's like, yeah, I shot even last LA. Last week, I finished nineteenth and I shot under par every single round, but it wasn't good. Like I didn't hit it very good. So that doesn't give me a lot of confidence. Now I'll turn that into a positive thing that, Okay, I hit
it awful the whole week. I didn't play well at all, but I still finished top twenty at a hard golf course among some of the best players in the world. So I'll turn that into a positive. But I'm not going to trick myself into thinking, oh, I'm playing well, It's all good. No, I got to get to home and get back to work.
Second it the PGA last year, you were in the last group with Brooks Majors. Obviously, when you get to a stage that you're at, you've been on a winning Ryder Cup team, you've won the FedEx, you've won PGA Tour events, You've won on the DP World Tour, You've won on an iconic golf courses. You won in Dubai, you won Jack's Place. What'd you learn from the final round of Sunday at Oakhill Because you didn't play that's
one of those rounds you didn't shoot. You didn't go out and shoot seventy five seventy seven and lose it. You shot in the sixties, didn't get it done. Did you learn anything that day from that experience?
Yeah, that's such a good segue as to what I was talking about. Yeah, because just before, because I was really proud of myself how I handled going up against now a five time major champion Brooks and on Sunday. You know, he he's got the intimidation factor and.
What is the intimidation factor that he has the fact that he's you know, he's won four majors.
Yeah, he's he's been in that situation before and he doesn't really back out. You know, he's gonna show up and play well. Obviously, his demeanor a big guy, doesn't talk too much. He's not going to be out Sir Miles. Yeah, it hits so far. So you just like you know that he's not gonna he's pulling.
On the golf course. The way he plays golf is very much he's gonna beat the golf course down. Like you said, he doesn't talk to anybody, and I respect that.
I think that's cool. And I really enjoyed just going up against him and playing against him, and I knew that my game's good enough to beat him, and I really felt like I did a good job. Now, the bunker situation on sixteen, that's one of those things where okay, I made a double bogie there, but yeah, it wasn't the best drive, but it was just one of those moments. It was the wrong shot at the wrong time, and I got, what were you saying?
So in that moment, give me the yardage that you had.
Oh, I don't remember all the specifics, but you probably guys.
I mean, that's probably in the one.
I think it was one one sixty yards. Ye, it was on the downs right, Yeah, So.
Did it look like you could clear the lip? And what club did you did you were you in between clubs or did the first club you pulled in that situation you went, okay, this is the one.
Yeah, it might have been closer one sixty five because I was in between a nine and eight, but I figured the pins slightly further back. I'm just gonna hit the nine, keep it a little bit short, and that's obviously gonna help me clear the lip. Now it's on a downslope. The lie wasn't all that great, so my thoughts are, okay, well, I got to make sure I hit the ball first, so I just guarantee contact or else the nine is just not going to get there.
And obviously it's on the downslope. So when I catch ball first, I catch it slightly thin and it just doesn't come out. And you know that that happens most of the time. It either hits the lip of the bunker and comes out, or worst case, it stays in the bunker. But now hopefully I have a better lie. But it ended up being plugged in there, and now I got to take an unplayable and now I still got a layup from there. So it was just a bad break. And yeah, you don't like hindsight.
Do you take wedge and just chip it up?
No?
No, it was just so if you had it to do over again, you choose the same club, which I listen. I love the fact that it's always easy to second guess it, right, it's always easy to go that. But I love the fact that you're saying, hey, I do it again, and I just execute better.
Yeah, and uh, I mean I just still think back to how I played before that. Now, I wouldn't say I if I would have made a couple more putts like Brooks had has putter going really nicely.
Thirteen from far from twelve feet, it was big down the hill on a par five. The last thing you want to do is make bogie there, go on the driveable par four on the next one.
Yeah.
When you play a golf course like that, I mean that's a hard, kind of old school Northeast golf course. You know, the golf course isn't going to give you a lot. So when you're going out on a Sunday in the last group in a major on a hard golf course like that, the mindset is, Okay, these are the holes that I feel like I have to take advantage of. These are the holes or the stretch of holes where hey, if I can just get through these with pars hang on, is that what you're thinking?
Kind of? But it's also because when you don't make birdie on the easier holes out there, that could kind of stress you out a little bit. And that's where I think the confidence comes in with your ball striking that okay, I can hit the shots, and even on the hardest shot, hardest holes on the golf course, you can. You can hit two nice shots and give yourself a birdie look and maybe sneak in a birdie where most guys are making bogies, and that's when you could really
that's how you're going to win tournaments. You know you're not going to do that consistently, but you make birdie on the easier holes and make a lot of pars on the tougher ones. That's kind of how you want it to set up. But if you want to separate yourself and win the major champions ships, sometimes you have to birdy the hard holes as well, and that that entails you know, having a four RN into part three even to stand up and hit and just stuff that. I think every.
Tournament, especially the bigger the tournament, the bigger the golf course, there's always that moment to where it if you're watching, but for you, for us, for all of us on the inner workings of it. You're like, Okay, you just got to stand up and hit a good shot here. I had Matthew Bavon on the Pody. He was talking about that at Tory Pines. You go to toy there's
no bail out there. You know that if you want to win the golf tournament, you got to stand up and you just got to hit really good shots, and really good shots, like you said, sometimes are really good shots. It's a four iron from your over two hundred yards to twenty five thirty feet and that's a good shot. It's not the it's not the seven iron to three
feet and everybody claps. Sometimes the great shots when you win these tournaments, or the ones that nobody really other than the people that you were playing with, or the really the people that are watching that are playing that are going he won the tournament by making par there, and everybody thinks he won the tournament by the two birdies. You're like, no, no, it was it was standing up hitting a really good drive here. Yeah, really get you
had a chance. It's seventh at the Masters last year. Obviously, that's the first major of the year. It's at the same golf course every year. What do you like about Augusta's course, and how do you think Augusta plays well for your guys, Because I think it's a really good golf course for the way that you play with as high as you can hit the golf ball with as
high as you can hit your irons. I just think Augusta is one of those places where you're going to be one of those players Vic that's always going to be a guy that is a threat around that golf course.
Yeah, I'd like to think so.
And I mean, you were low am there as an amateur when you were the Usam champion, so obviously I also think it's the type of golf course if you play well there as an amateur and you turn pro and you know that you're going to continue to play there, you've got to say, Okay, I got here and I really didn't know anything, and my game when I came here in twenty eighteen was much raw than it is now.
So going into the first major of the year, when you get to a what do you like about that golf course and what do you think having played there and having had a top ten last year, what do you feel like you have to do well there for the week.
Yeah, I just think it's really cool every time I show up there and you learn something new. There's so many slopes and undulations and where to miss it, where not to miss it. You always learn something and I think that's really cool. I think that's why it's so hard for first timers out there to do really really well, because there's so much experience that that leads to a
huge advantage. And it is really really tough, especially certain pin locations and when the conditions, if there's win around there, it becomes very very difficult. But it's one of those places you don't have to be perfect. It's really hard, but you don't have to be perfect if you know where to miss it.
And I think so many players there vic they do the Jedi mind trick on themselves there because they're trying to be so perfect that because you know that to win around there it does take historically some element of perfection or knowledge or something like that. But I think what I'm hearing you say is sometimes you can get into trying to be so perfect, trying to you know, everybody knows, you know the seventh Green. There's places where they put that pin where you've got five yards a
five yard square to land it, to get it close. Yeah, when they put that pin back right on six, you know, to get it close there there's a very small landing spot. But you're saying that maybe sometimes you try and become too perfect and you don't hit the right shot that you need to hit, and you didn't maybe need to be that perfect around Augusta.
That was kind of the week. Joe Mayo was out there watching me, and he had watched me play all the termins that I played up to that point earlier in the year, and he kind of said it middle of the week that there's something wrong, like the strategy is wrong, and that was kind of the impetus to us talking deeper to Eduardo and figuring some more stats out.
And it showed in the aftermath that with seven irons an inn, I was way too aggressive and I was short sighted myself over two times as much as a normal or the average iron player on tour, which I'm above average with my irons, so you would think I would short side myself less, but I short sighted myself two and a half times more, which that's that's hard to make up for, and especially at Masters or Augusta very.
Not a lot of play system. There's no real stretches of that golf course other than the par fives where I would imagine as a player mentally, you're like, this is a birdie hole. Yeah, And once you get to the weekend, it feels like because of the weekend and Augusta, if you're kind of around the lead, I would imagine you feel like, Okay, I got a birdie two and then I've got a birdie sixteen, I've got a birdie thirteen, and I've got a birdie eight. Other than that, I'm
basically just trying to hang on. But you are going to get days vic where the weather's good, where maybe it's a little bit soft, and there is going to be that player that goes out under really good conditions and shoots six under seven under. But I think that golf course more than any because it's the same. There's it mind tricks you into going because you know where
all the problems are. You've seen where everybody you know, I mean nineteen, you know you got three groups, two groups, three players in a row, rinse it in the water and all make double bogin tiger hits. It left the aims left of the green, hits twenty feet and gets out. Do you think sometimes Augusta the way it's designed and the design of it. I mean Alistair McKenzie, the great designer. You know what his job was in the military, right
I camouflage? Oh, camouflage the military. Somebody told me that once and I was living in Scotland. They're like, he he was an expert in camouflage. So if you think about if you look at most Alistair McKenzie, you go to the first hole at Augusta and stand and look back, you can never see any of the bunkers. Yeah, so when you're on the green and look back, you can't see where any of the bunkers are because of the
way they're designed. So does Augusta mentally? Can it mentally get in your head because you're like, Okay, I'm not supposed to be under par because the golf course is so hard. If you make the turn in three four under and you get a good look at ten, you're like, okay, I can go to four or five under here, but I'm not supposed to be four or five under because the golf course is so hard.
Uh. Not so much that way but it's more like, Okay, I'm just for example of the first round last year, I was seven hundred part through thirteen and I ended up shooting seven under par that first round. But I was doing things like number nine. The pen was all the way left, back left, and I'm on a slope that's you know, the ball's below my feet. And I also like to hit a cut. SHA's telling me it was a full nine iron. SHA's like I would just just hit it thirty feet right of the pin, and
I'm just like, no, no, no, I got this one. I hit a cut off the bunker, land it left of the pen and hit it to like two feet and Shash's laughing because like it was nice. I got to five under par after nine. But my point that it's no stupid.
Nobody is thinking from that lie ball below your feet the back left pin because you put it in that bunker.
Yeah, and it's bogey every time you could still be in there. Yeah.
And then you're in that bunker and you're trying to figure out, Okay, if I can get this inside of fifteen twenty feet, this is an unbelievable shot. Yeah, But that's I know. Shay's walking to the green looking at you going, and all of the veterans that would watch you hit that shot would just go, yeah, but is that a situation where the percentages your caddy sent but you just see the shot.
Yeah. I mean that was like that was kind of the impetus to that changing of strategy because I think it's like his borderline, right, Oh, it's it's way beyond reckless because I played with Tiger in that round and I remember I was, no.
He's looking at you going, just put this ink twenty feet because there's never been a player and you've gotten to play with him a lot. And one of the other things that I wanted to ask you, I marvel at this and I asked Shay about this as well after the Ryder Cup. Very similar to Tiger. I've never seen a player hit the ball pin high or past the pin as much as you do, for as an elite of a player as you are. Tiger always you played a lot the guy don't sit the pin high
all the time. And it's an art form, but at I noticed it a lot because I was doing TV at the Ryder Cup. You hit it pin high or one or two yards past the pin, so many times during the course of a round. It is that by design? Is that something that you're even conscious of.
I'd say when I when I play my best golf with my irons, I have like because on the range you always just hit a full swing, just a normal full swing. But on the course you never have a perfect number. You always got to take a little bit off or hit it slightly harder. And when I play my best golf, I I have taken more club unless it's like a short pin and you got to stop
the ball quickly. I take more club and hit like a three quarter punch shot, but it has enough spin on the ball to where it just launches slightly lower, it spins up in the air and I just have
a lot of control with it that way. So to those back pin I can hit like a low six siron that lands twenty five feet short of it skips up and just releases slightly instead of oh I got to hit a perfect seven iron to maybe get it within twenty feet and then the bad swing or when it comes up it's probably thirty forty feet short and
you're just always lag putting from there. So that's kind of a place where I would just take slightly more club and I would just be very comfortable with those three quarter shots and you can squeeze that into a lot of corners on the green instead of just Okay, well I don't have a perfect number, so I'm just gonna hit the full swing middle of the green. You kind of handcuff yourself that way.
Tiger, you've won the hero twice. He's gotten to give you the trophy. That's the Tiger. But I would imagine, out of all the places, if you're gonna get paired with Tiger Woods, if you get paired with Tiger at Augusta, it's got to be really hard during the round to not be trying to like figure out, Okay, what's he doing? I mean, what's the strategy? Or because I mean, he is such a savant genius, he's won so many times
around that golf course. Is it hard when you when you're playing with Tiger and Augusta, did not watch him and not watch what he's doing.
I'd say, Now, I've only played with him two times, but when I played with him there, obviously it was really cool. It was a cool place to play with him at. But I'm still a competitor and he's he's playing against me, so I'm gonna try to beat him, and so I don't pay too much attention. And I didn't want to be the guy that he does up and just like, yeah.
That's Tony tried to talk. You've heard that story, right, I haven't. So Tony played a bunch of practice rounds with him and played a lot of rounds with him, and you know, I mean, obviously they're boys and stuff. But nineteen t Dove's in the last group, a chance to win, and Tony's trying to talk to him, like through a couple of rounds, and I've got to be honest with you, He's lucky. Tony's lucky that Stevie wasn't
on about Kastevia would have ran him out earlier. But the difference between all of the sudden Tiger when he's in the hunt, like you said, you're a competitor, so you're not gonna fanboy and watch whatever. I mean, he is the ultimate. I mean, he not gonna watch what anybody else is doing. And you were born when in the year that he won the Masters for the first time in ninety seven, was he your idol growing up? Was was I mean, everybody I think of your age
group idolizes him. But was he kind of the catalyst as to one of the reasons why you chose golf as a path for basically your entire life.
Yeah, i'd say so.
I mean did he get play in Norway? I mean Norway not a huge golf country. I mean Henrik Bjornstad one of the all time best European tour bear Town love him if you haven't watched he who's the other guy that does the commentary when you're winning golf tournaments? I mean, there should be an all alternative live feed every time you play competitive golf with the two Norwegian commentators because their enthusiasm for it. But was Tiger a big deal growing up in Norway?
Yeah, I mean people in Norway didn't really watch golf too much. There's a few people that would watch Henry dorn Stat as you mentioned when he was playing a few years ago. And you know the people that played and knew, they knew. But I'd say most other people, they were like, oh, you play golf, I only know Tiger Woods. So everyone knew who Tiger Woods was. And I just remember in high school and even before that,
I would just when we had computers in class. I would just watch on YouTube, just Tiger Woods highlight reels and yeah, just getting like hairs on my back and just.
Someone that watched that. I was lucky enough. You know, my dad started coaching him in ninety three. I took the first the video. You'll see some video of my dad with the straw hat on. Yeah, I took the I was running the video that day, so I was there that first day. Yeah. So you're of that generation that never really got to see him play play. Yeah, you watch it on YouTube. I say this to everybody. You're it, I promise you as good as you think it was, it was so much better. Yeah, he was
so much better than we remember now. He just was amazing. Is it crazy to you to think now that when you go back to Norway, surely you must get recognized now as an athlete, as someone who is doing great things. When you were growing up, you told people what you did, you were playing golf, and they're like, I don't know
any golfers are just no tiger Woods. Now you are going to be someone that someone thirteen fourteen years old that wants to play golf is going to go I know Victor Hovlin, I mean does that I mean, and are you getting when you just got back? I know you went home over over Christmas and over the holidays. Do you get recognized now?
Yeah, I'd say so, especially if I go to a golf course. That's that's really cool. Obviously the pandemic helped people kind of get into golf a little bit more because it was a sport you can be outside and still be social and have fun. But definitely seems to like us Norwegian says people, we're kinda we're very patriotic when our countrymen do something good, like Magnus Carlson when he's I mean, when he beats everyone in chess, everyone
just starts playing chess. And I remember Torre who's sold he was in Tour de France and then suddenly everyone starts cycling. And so Norwegians are very much like that. And now it seems like, oh, now people people that don't play golf, they watch golf because they want to support me or whoever it might be. So that's that's really cool that I can kind of play a part of inspiring other people from Norway, as I was inspired by Tiger and other guys when I once watched them when I was younger.
Crazy times in golf in twenty twenty four, VIC twenty twenty five, what would you like to see? I mean, you know, there's it seems like there's so much upheaval Live SSG coming in for the tour now, Like a lot of players, I know, the Live guys made you an offer. You chose to stay. Some of your Ryder Cup teammates and Terrell Hatton and Gen Ram chose to go. But for you as a player and you as a
person and as a professional golfer. In twenty twenty four, what direction would you like to see the game go in as a way to maybe try and change things from what it has been. Yeah, because I think I think I've gotten to know you over the last you know, career four years. I think you're a really bright thinker. You're smart, You're inquisitive, You're a curious person. You ask questions as one of the things I like talking to you because you ask questions. Sometimes people don't really ask.
So what are the questions you still have and what would you like to see maybe this look like one day?
Yeah, I don't know. I like to ask questions because I don't know a whole lot myself. So if I ask more questions and I get more information, then I can make a better decision. And that's I think that's the frustrating part from my standpoint is that us as players, things haven't been very transparent for us, So it's hard for us to when you're asking me a question here and I want to be truthful and give you a straight kind of answer. Yeah, So I just don't know,
but I would like to see. Obviously, the Live is bringing in a lot of money to the sport and there's a lot of competition, which I think is good, but it seems to have been a response from the PGA tourist side that Okay, we're gonna it's just more talk about the money, and I think that's a little bit sad. Now, money is important and everyone needs to get paid accordingly in a fair way, but I don't think that needs to be like the driving force behind
this or the story every single week. It's like not to dog on a tournament here or there, but like you could put the price or the the purse for John Deer to six million bucks to first first place, but I'd much rather win a Memorial or a tournament like.
Because of the history and the golf course, Yeah, Jack and something like that. Listen, I think that every player on tour wants to win a golf tournament on an iconic golf course. I mean last week DJ was up here over the weekend hitting some golf balls and he's on his phone watching the early coverage of Riviera, and I was like, what you doing. He's like, it's my favorite golf course. It's like, I was so lucky to
win there. I just cool love it. He named his son River after Riviera, so it is a golf course after River. So DJ loves that golf course, right, I mean, he just loves it. And so for you, winning at a place like Memorial, obviously your first win in Puerto Rico is huge, but when you win a tournament at Jack's place, all the people that have won there before,
it's an iconic PGA Tour golf course. Yeah, for you, it means something winning on those type of winning those type of tournaments, in winning on those type of golf course.
Yeah, and that's the thing. You're gonna have those memories of winning that event, seeing kind of your name on that trophy and the history.
Of all the standing there we walk off.
That's that's pretty cool. Obviously the paycheck is nice as well, but that's if that's what you're remembering by the end of the week. I kinda that feels a little bit soulless in my opinion, So you know, it's, uh, yeah, I don't know what the path forward is. To be honest, it's been, uh it's been a little sad, but I try not to think about it too much. It's a little comical, to be honest, to see what's going on
in the game of golf. But I hope there's a resolution in the future because at the end of the day, I just want to compete at the best golf courses, the best tournament. I guess the best players, and it's the simplest that. However that's going to happen. I don't know, but that's what I would like to see.
I think there are supposed to be smarter people than usick trying to figure that out. Lastly, your love of death metal, where did it? Where did it come from? That genre of music? The people like yourself that are big into death metal. You're big into death metal. I mean it's big, and give me some bands that are your favorite. But when did you start listening to death metal?
Well, I've always been a linking park kind of guy, so I liked rock, but I didn't really I was too young to really know that, oh, this is rock or hard rock or alternative, whatever you want to call it. And my Swedish coach at the time, when I was kind of twelve thirteen years old, we because it was winter in Norway, snow everywhere, so we decided to take a road trip to Sweden for the weekend and because
we could practice her a little bit. And he's kind of an old school hard rocker, heavy metal guy, so Iron Maiden, Romstein and and kind of those those bigger bands, Guns and Roses all that stuff. So as he's playing that in the car, I'm thinking this is pretty good. I like this stuff. And after the trip I went home just google on YouTube or search on YouTube best metal songs, and the first thing that pops up is a system of a down chop Suey and I start
playing it. It's super melodic. In the beginning, I'm like, oh, this is pretty cool, and then they just start screaming yeah, and I'm like, wow, this is this is a lot, this is aggressive, and I listened to it. I didn't really like it. I turned it off, and then a couple of days after I came back to it, I listened to it again, and then I listened to it again, and then I just realized, Okay, I kind of I
kind of get it now. It's just something clicked to where I understood the message, or it just instead.
Some of those songs gonna be like quite melodic and stuff, and then it turns into the you know, the guitar and all the drums and that kind of yeah.
And then instead of being like whoa backing off and what is this? This is aggressive? I just kind of accepted it and understood it, and then from then on it was just okay, how extreme can I get?
So you there's there's death metal, and then there's Scandinavian, Swedish Norwegian death metal, which is like, I mean that's like someone being yeah, he's a scratch golfer, and then there's like a plus five. I mean, if if we're going for death metal, I mean.
Yeah, well I'm not like because in Norway we're very known for black metal, and I just haven't delved into that at all. That's not really my style. Because what's cool the more you get into metal, metal as a as a genre is so big. You have so many subgenres within metal, and I've gravitated. Like in Sweden they have a lot of melodic death metal is what they call, and there's a lot of bands like in Flames that's old school and and like that that I just like
their their sound and their style. And then now in recent years, I've listened to a lot to a band called Vildiarta and that's like, are they from They're from Sweden as well, but it's not like I mean, they could they say that there's their genres kind of fall that's what they call, and it's just like they've kind of created their own genre because it's so it's so out there, and I just think it's, Uh, it's not something that I listened to all the time because it's
pretty intense and it's just you kind of have to sit down and pay attention to it. But I think it's h I just remember listening to the recent album they posted a couple of years ago, and it had taken them over ten years from their first album, uh to make the newest one, and I could just as I'm listening to it, you can hear like a lot of what do they call it easter eggs in this new album, Like riffs and sounds and melodies that they had in the first album incorporated into the newer album.
So it was just like, as I'm listening to it, the beats are awesome, or the the rifts are off awesome, and it's just the sound is great, and then you hear the old sounds that you've heard before into a new song. It was just it was unbelievable. So ever since then, I've just kind of considered that band as my favorite band. Go to shows, I don't, I don't. I much prefer just put the headphones on and just be in my bedroom and just chilling out.
Lastly, lastly, goals for this year. You know, obviously coming off of a monster I mean there are years and then there are monster years. I mean, the way you played last year, you win the tournaments that you want, you you you win late in the and then win I mean, it's hard to back that up, right, But obviously you're one of the players that every single major that's going to be played for the next ten years, your name is going to be penciled in as one
of the favorites. So what are the goals this year and how do you go about trying to back up, like I said, a breakthrough, monster career year for you in really you know, you've had one of the you've had a career year really before you're thirty. Yeah, I mean been on two or five years now and you've had that monster like Jordan Speed. Jordan Speed had a just a wins two majors. I mean, where do you go from there?
Yeah, I definitely would like to win a major and win a lot of tournaments, keep winning tournaments. But I'm not a guy that sets schools like that. I know what I need to work on in my golfspeling or on the greens during the short game just or outside of golf, and I'd like to just keep improving on that and just get a little better all the time. And then, you know, I can't really I mean, obviously I'm in somewhat of a control, but I can't control if I'm gonna win that PGA at O Kill this
or last year. It's one of those things that at the end of the day, yes, I finished second, and it was brutaled away that I finished second, but I was very happy with the way that I played, how much I had improved in just a short span of time. And if I continue to do the right things and I see things improving, I'm gonna win tournaments and I'm gonna have good results. So that's kind of just how I think about it, just constantly trying to get a little bit better.
Well, I've been around professional golfick my whole life, and you know, rarely do we see a player like you that has not only all the tools that you have, but I think the way that you think, in the way that your brain works, and kind of your approach to golf, I just think is so refreshing. And it's been really fun to watch all the success you've had.
And I will be shocked in two three years now if you don't have multiple major championships, because you're sure no, But Vic, your game is so good and you are such a kind of breath of fresh air to competitive golf.
Like I said, the way you're always smiling, but the game that you have is just it is so so fun to watch, and I just I just think this guy's the limit for you, man, I I and I think if you're not, even though the world rankings are kind of a little bit weird now, but I don't see any reason why you're not number one in the world in the next three years, because that's how good you are.
Well, thank you.
It's a pleasure to watch. And I can't thank you enough for taking time to talk to us.
Thanks for the Chack Claude.
So that was Victor Hoblin and it's easily one of my favorite pods. Like I said, I'm a fanboy, right, I mean, I was fan boeing the entire time I'm talking to Vic because I really like him as a person. I really like him as a player, and I just I love his game and I love his approach, the way he plays golf. I love the fact that, you know, we talked about the fact that he was a terrible chipper when he came out onto her, and you know, he fixed that, and you know, a lot of ways,
I think Vick is kind of fearless. He's a fun guy. He's like, he's joined my club, the Floridian. So I get to kind of get to talk to him when he's home and get to kind of watch him work and watch him hit balls and watch how he goes about doing things, and I'm a fan, so to be able to sit down and talk to him was a
really really cool experience for me. Like I said at the top of the show, two million downloads, that is just it's mind boggling to me, and I'm incredibly humbled that everyone listens on a weekly basis, and we're going
to continue to try and get you more guests. But the main thing we're going to try and get you to do is help you with your game so that when you go out and play, you've got things you can work on, ideas ways to play golf, and hopefully by listening to the podcast, you take away something not only from something that I've said or one of the players, or the other coaches or the other guests we've had on that can maybe help you shoot lower scores and
enjoy your golf more. So, thank everybody for listening. Son of A which comes to you every Wednesday, and we will see you next week.