Viktor Hovland has somewhat surprisingly split with his coach Joe Mayo on the eve of the new PGA Tor season - severing ties with the man credited with helping the Norwegian's massive short game improvements.
Hovland famously said "I just suck at chipping" in 2020 after capturing his maiden PGA Tour title, but saw huge improvement in 2023 as he went on to win the FedEx Cup.
Mayo began working on Hovland's short game in February last year, after four seasons on the PGA Tour where he failed to finish higher than 124th in Strokes Gained around the greens.
And from finishing 191st out of 193 players in 2022, Hovland shot up to finish 86th in 2023 and also finished 48th in scrambling and 36th in scrambling from the rough.
Just to highlight his improvement in what was by far the weakest part of his game, Hovland then produced a memorable chip-in on the first hole at the Ryder Cup.
Despite working on all those improvement with Mayo, though, Hovland has decided on making a coaching change, according to Golf Channel's Todd Lewis.
Hovland "did not want to get into details regarding the split" according to Lewis, with the news coming just before the start of the new season.
The Sentry in Hawaii marks the start of the 2024 PGA Tour campaign, where Hovland is looking to pick up where he left off last year when winning the BMW Championship and Tour Championship.
Hovland, who labels himself as a perfectionist, starts the year at No.4 in the world and having gone close a couple of times last year is eyeing his maiden Major title in 2024.
Having finished last year as the hottest player on the planet, a Major victory and even the World No.1 spot are both within his grasp, but he obviously feels he needs another coaching change to take that final step.
Viktor Hovland is no longer working with swing coach Joe Mayo. Hovland did not want to get into details regarding the split. Last year Viktor worked with Mayo to change his short game mechanics and improved 91 positions in strokes gained around the greens from 2022 to 2023.January 3, 2024
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