Viktor Hovland gives us something we’ve probably never heard before in sports

You’ve heard it all in sports, haven’t you? You’ve heard coaches of heavily favored football teams complain that the oddsmakers don’t know a thing. You’ve heard boxers boast what they are going to do to an opponent before they’re arrogant enough to step into the ring. 

But you’ve never heard anyone quite like Viktor Hovland.

He’s a PGA Tour pro. He’s from Norway. He went to Oklahoma State. And this past weekend, he won the Valspar Championship near Tampa.

Although you wouldn’t know it from his comments—which could be described as unique and, at times, baffling for someone who had just secured a victory—this was a man who had won five other events, including both the BMW Championship and the Tour Championship in 2023.

“It’s unbelievable that I won,” said Hovland. “I really didn’t think I was going to. It’s still the same swing. I still hit some disgusting shots, but somehow I was able to put it together this week.” 

So much for the advice you need to be positive to be successful. Better to be realistic and have the guy in front of you, Justin Thomas, who happens to have won two majors, collapse with bogeys on two of the last three holes.

Golf often is an evil game. The setting, a course beautiful enough on which to have a picnic, may fool even the most skeptical of individuals.

It may not be a long walk spoiled, but it’s a pastime that makes people lose their cool and often threaten to hurl their clubs—or themselves—into a water hazard or a trash bin. The little things get to you, like forgetting to sign the scorecard, negating all you’ve done with the clubs in your bag. So do the big things, like missing a tee shot or, worse, a short putt.  

Hovland probably had no expectations coming into the Valspar. He had missed the cut in the three preceding tournaments. Ah, but that’s the beauty and the agony of the game.

Once again, who could imagine Thomas, seemingly playing well at last, giving the tournament away with poor approach shots on 16 and 18?

Meanwhile, Hovland, down on himself, was able to get the ball down into the cup.

Apropos of nothing, the general chairman of the Valspar is Ronde Barber, the NFL Hall of Famer. You wonder if his years in athletics prepared him for the ending of the tournament and Hovland’s bizarre analysis.

“I’ve been playing poorly,” said Hovland. “No confidence. When you don’t believe you can play well, it is hard to come out and play week after week.”

As one of the Golf Channel commentators pointed out, “It certainly doesn’t sound like your typical post-match interview.”

That’s because it wasn’t.

Lonely golf at the AT&T

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — There wasn’t a rain cloud in sight. Or any spectators either. Nature is responsible for the first. The people who run the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro Am get credit or blame — you decide — for the other. 

Yes, time once more for Northern California’s favorite golfing event — maybe America’s, if you go by the TV ratings — when show business and big business hook up with players who really mean business.

It was created in the 1930s by Bing Crosby (go ahead, Google his name or his game), and as much because of the format and the spectacular landfall on which it long has been held — not to mention the conditions — it has persisted for eight decades.

Not that everyone who plays the PGA tour is enthralled. They don’t like rotating among three courses, Pebble Beach, Monterey Peninsula and Spyglass Hill. They don’t like being slowed by amateurs, rounds usually lasting six hours. They don’t like the climate, although everything was gorgeous on Tuesday.

The AT&T — for nostalgia’s sake, we’ll call it the Crosby — is remembered and heralded for storms and cold. The bad weather might not have produced wonderful golf, but it has given us at least one memorable comment.

“I can’t wait,” said the singer Phil Harris, “to get out of these wet clothes and into a dry martini.”

I can’t wait to see fans swarming over the courses. For no good reason, tickets are no longer sold for practice rounds on Tuesday. It was lonely out there, other than a few locals.

It’s a different world. We understand that. But when you can walk six blocks from Flaherty’s restaurant in Carmel, only a few yards from Pebble Beach, and not encounter another human soul, it’s a strange world.

That doesn’t particularly bother or affect Viktor Hovland, who seems content any place on any course. He grew up in Norway — no sardine jokes, please — went to Oklahoma State and won the 2018 U.S. Amateur at Pebble.

Those amateurs are not to be confused with the ones in the AT&T, who are more recognized — Bills quarterback Josh Allen, retired Giants catcher Buster Posey, 49ers Hall of Fame quarterback Steve Young, soccer star Gareth Bale and as always Bill Murray — but don’t carry handicaps.

That doesn’t mean they might not carry their pro.

“Obviously you want to have fun and play well,” said Hovland about teaming up. “I like to play fast. But I do enjoy the format. It’s very unique to be able to play a PGA Tour event with an amateur, and I don't mind it. But I'd prefer to play fast, and I'm here to obviously try to win the golf tournament, so it depends on the partner, as well. I think you get to kind of have a little bit of a different feel to it. It feels more relaxed.”

The lack of fans? AT&T officials decided after shifting the celebrity shoot-out from Tuesday to Wednesday that marshals and security types appreciate time off before tournament play begins Thursday.

What? Didn’t we have too much lonely golf when Covid closed things down three years ago?

“That is a different dynamic,” said Hovland. “It felt lonely.”

As it did Tuesday.