Viktor Hovland enters this week's Sentry Tournament of Champions at a career-high 7th in the world after winning three times in 2021 including his last two starts at the Mayakoba Golf Classic and Hero World Challenge. The Norwegian arrived to Hawaii last Wednesday, eight days before the start of the tournament, but did not receive his clubs until six days later! It resulted in him only getting to play the course on the final practice day.
His bag went missing for five days after travelling from Oslo via Paris via Seattle to get to Hawaii for this week's event. And when his clubs did finally arrive, his driver shaft was snapped on his Ping G425 - which was a replacement. Hovland won the Mayakoba Golf Classic using James Hahn's back-up driver after Danny Lee broke his when testing it on the range, so at least he is used to using back-ups.
The World No.7 wrote on Instagram calling Delta Airlines to sort their 's#!T' together and then wrote "Can't say I'm surprised!!!" when he discovered his broken driver.
He spent his time in Hawaii going to the gym and beach, and managed to play some golf with his caddie Shay Knight's clubs.
"It wasn't ideal, but at least when you haven't hit balls, the main thing is to just kind of get a feel for it," Hovland said. "Obviously, the preparations haven't been ideal. My duffel bag and my mom's duffel bag was there, but we waited 30 minutes for my golf bag and it didn't show up. They said they sent it through Salt Lake City, apparently."
"It's a little different case because I was playing pretty good and then testing James' driver, it was really good. I'm still playing that driver. It's a little different this week, but I'm getting better every day. But it's not ideal that I have to spend these couple of days to try to get back into things and find my swing."
