Pebble Beach, California – One day after saying that his “sucked” game, Viktor Hovland did eight birdies and pulled 65 years Thursday at Pebble Beach Golf Links to rest a stroke of Russell Henley at the AT&T PEBBLE BEACH PR-AM. How did the Norwegian explain this sudden turnaround?
“I can always play and today it was good conditions,” he said. “And I hit some very beautiful corners and I started to make putts.”
On Wednesday, during his press conference before the tournament, Hovland was invited to what he liked in the game and his response was revealing. “The game itself is so elusive, it’s so counter-intuitive, but it looks so simple. It’s just fascinating, “he said.” These are just problems on problems you have to solve and I think it’s very intriguing. You never solve it, but you can always improve and you can understand things along the way. “”
The days of Hovland hitting the ball on a string as he did in 2023 on the way to win the Fedex Cup feels like a distant memory for him, but he likes to hunt greatness and he is convinced that the foundation remains to be resumed The form that made him a WorldBeater. Thursday was a step in the right direction. He led him straight, stuck him near and made putts.
“It is difficult to choose one thing,” he said when they asked him what made him happy in the first round. “It was a lot of good today.”
But he would not go so far as to say that he does not suck.
“I am still not satisfied with my game, its appearance, but that does not mean that I can have great individual days or large individual tournaments. So I’m still really pumped to get 65 years old, “he said. “Whatever the statistics for today, I probably won on the tee and in the Greens. It looks great on paper. This is how my mind works is naturally extrapolating what I have done today and how to play during a season. “”
Hovland dismissed the instructor Joe Mayo during the out of season season and worked with consultants, but said that he was still looking for a new coach. As much as he likes Pebble Beach, where he won the American amateur in 2018 and was a weak amateur at the 2019 US Open, he said he was planning to jump the event to continue working on his swing.
“Constantly try to go out here and pump yourself to play well, then you are disappointed because you cannot play at this level, you know, that makes a psychologically number,” he said. “So, just trying to have a little more fun, not worry about the result and start from there.”
As for a mental coach, he said it was not for him.
“When the ball goes everywhere and you pay a guy to sit there and say” be positive “, this kind of shouting a little my gears,” he said. “I don’t want to hear that.”
His score was not zero in the first round in a place where Hovland is convinced that he can trace his way, but if he had played in other big boy courses such as Muirfield Village, home of the Memorial, Hovland said his game would be “I was exposed. In Hovland’s head, his game is always too imperfect.
“They are still there, but I was able to overcome it today,” he said.
Chance of the Irish
Shane Lowry and Rory McILroy could have turned an advertisement of a double gum on Thursday because the two friends of the European Ryder Cup team doubled their pleasure and doubled their pleasure with a pair of aces.
McILroy made a hole in a first at 119 yards of Spyglass Hill, par-3 15th.
“It was a perfect number for a corner of the gap for me, it was 135 adjusted and I could just go ahead and take a good swing,” he said. “It is a T-shirt so high that the ball is in the air and you know it’s online, but you don’t know if you have to say or sit or turn or free or something else. It’s a little weird, you look at it and you look at somehow where it could land on the green and the thing disappears. “”
Lowry, which started n ° 10 in Pebble, appreciated its own moment using a corner of 54 degrees in the famous 113 yards, par-3 7th.
“He came out charming just to the left of the hole, where you have to throw it if you want to bring it closer,” he said. “Yeah, a big rebound, it was perfect. He turned and turned directly into the hole. It was pretty cool.
The Northern Irishman struck him for his second as a career as a tour.
“Honestly, it was lucky, I don’t see many bullets nowadays going directly to the hole and staying in the hole,” he said. “Quite lucky because he could have come out and return to the water or do anything.”
Lowry, which started n ° 10 in Pebble, appreciated its own moment using a corner of 54 degrees in the famous 113 yards, par-3 7.th.
“He came out charming just to the left of the hole, where you have to throw it if you want to bring it closer,” he said. “Yeah, a big rebound, it was perfect. He turned and turned directly into the hole. It was pretty cool.
When he was asked where he would buy drinks tonight, Lowry, who celebrated his British open victory in an Irish bar in the morning hours, called this a “school evening”.
“If there are a few people there at dinner, I’m sure. I hope Rory is also there, I can divide the bill with him, “he said.
But Lowry did not hesitate when he was asked who was better. “Yeah, mine is definitely better,” he said.
Scheffler and Spieth are back
With a first round of 8 sous 64 at the Spyglass Hill Golf Course, Russell Henley holds a advance suddenly more than six players. He sorted half of the holes, including a chip-in with his lob corner at n ° 9. The scoring was low Thursday at the AT&T while the land benefited from calm conditions, with an average of 68.175 in Pebble and 69,775 in Spyglass.
“There is no real riddle game, it’s just a little point and shooting,” said Jake Knapp, who pulled a 65 without Bogey in Pebble Beach. “Just a lot of target golf.”
Scottie Scheffler showed little rust by finding his target. After a minor surgical intervention to remove the glass from his hand in a bizarre accident at Christmas, he posted 5 under 67 at Spyglass.
“I liked what I saw today,” he said. “I hit a few wandering shots, but overall, I kept the course in front of me for the most part, so I was able to do a decent amount of birdies.”
Spieth released a longer layoff. He has been doing his first departure since August at the Fedex St. Jude championship, after undergoing surgery on the left wrist to repair a broken tendon sheath. Spieth started in the new back and made a 20 -foot birdie at Spyglass 13’s 13th Hole and was 3 under its first eight holes, but took three putts of 65 feet at No. 2 and signed for 2-mes of 70.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Pebble Beach 2025: Russell Henley, Scottie Scheffler made his debut
