Former FedEx Cup champ Viktor Hovland finds his groove again at East Lake

ATLANTA – Save for one “brain fart,” Viktor Hovland’s putter performed like Excalibur on Thursday at East Lake Golf Club. 

The Norwegian drained three 12-footers for birdie and a 28-footer on No. 7 on the front nine and came home in four more birdies, including another 12-footer at the last to make up for a three-putt bogey at 17 to shoot 6-under 64 in the first round of the Tour Championship.

“I made a lot of really nice putts to keep momentum going,” he said. “Even though the greens are different the last couple years, I do feel like this is a putting surface I have putted well on. I just happen to feel really comfortable with my reads. I didn’t second-guess myself a whole lot. When I was over the ball, it was just one look and go, and the ball started on line and tracked in the hole.”

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Hovland poured in 142 feet of putts and gained more than 3 strokes on the greens, which ranked second in the field despite a 3-putt from 25 feet at 17 when he gunned his first putt nearly 10 feet past the hole. Still, he sits tied for second and trails Min Woo Lee, who shot a bogey-free 62, by two strokes.

Hovland said it also didn’t hurt that he hit 11 of 14 fairways, but the misses have been penal.

“Some of those spots out there, the ball just goes straight out to the bottom,” he said. “I had a rail on a 56-degree two times there. On 6, the par-5, and on 14 I hit both in the right roughs. Hit two really hard 56-degrees that probably only went 80 yards. So, it’s pretty juicy.”

Hovland won a signature event in June at the Travelers Championship, which keyed his run to the playoffs but at the first leg in Memphis he switched coaches and returned to working with Joe Mayo. It’s the third time they’ve worked together in this on again, off again marriage and while it Hovland conceded that it’s tricky to make changes at this point in the season, the Bans-Aid fixes have been working well enough given his overall displeasure with his technique and “Big Miss” right – at least off the tee.

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“It takes time to change that stuff. It’s hard to do that in these weeks when the pressure is pretty high and you want to perform,” he said. “Yeah, just been trying to make a few good adjustments, but it’s hard to do that right away out there on the golf course. I’ll be looking forward to taking some time off this fall.”

Hovland won the Tour Championship and the FedEx Cup in 2023 and he’d like nothing more than to do so again. He’s been there, done that and he knows what it takes.

“This week, you just have to perform and get the best out of yourself for one week, and I feel like when I can put myself in that mindset, I tend to get a lot out of my game,” he said.