Even with two days he didn’t fully sit for Victor Hovland (24), he ended up joint fourth place at the Genesis Invitational thanks to the Super Tours on Friday and Saturday.
With a second place finish or better, Hovland could return to third in the rankings, but he never flowed for the 24-year-old in the final round, as he chased after his fourth win on the PGA Tour.
Hovland proved very consistent with the racket, but the rest of the match wasn’t entirely for the Norwegian. In the end, the round was a 70 hit, one hit below par. Thus, Hovland finished a total of 14 strokes on par, which took the joint fourth place with former world number one Adam Scott.
One place higher than last year, he finished fifth in the big championship in Los Angeles.
– Today he hasn’t played quite well, but he’s so good that he can still make the lowest level. It is somewhat of a property. It’s as if Victor couldn’t play anything worse than he does today, and then he makes 70 hits on a tough track. It’s pretty wild, says Discovery + commentator Per Hagsrud.
Hovland has played a total of 60 counting championships on the PGA Tour, becoming a Top Five in all 11 of them.
The win went to Joaquín Niemann (23), who finished 19 strikes below par. He won by two strokes, ahead of world runner-up Colin Morikawa and Cameron Young. Niemann has been driving since the first round, staying well on the way to the biggest victory of his career. This is Niemann’s second win on the PGA Tour.
A messy Victor Hovland started at The Genesis Invitational with a run of equality, and was split 61st after the first round. However, for the next two days, he made excellent golf, with rounds of seven and six below par, respectively. Before the last round he was in third place.
Admittedly, there were six strokes behind Joaquin Niemann in the lead, and the Norwegian couldn’t put pressure on the Chilean.
Hovland opened with a little birdie on hole 1, but he didn’t have the usual quality of iron shots and batons. Having played nine holes, he was on par on the round, before getting two birds in a row on holes 10 and 11.
A small hope was ignited in the search for Niemann, but it was short-lived after a ghost came into the hole next.
The Genesis Invitational is one of the biggest tournaments on the PGA Tour, and the tournament featured all the players in the top 10 rankings – including Hovland, ranked No. 4 in the world. The prize pool in the tournament is up to NOK 107.9 million, of which the tournament winner Niemann received NOK 19.4 million.
Hovland’s joint fourth place gives him a prize check of 540,000 US dollars, equivalent to about 4.86 million Norwegian kroner.
Hovland is not in next week’s championship on the PGA Tour.
Note! You can follow the PGA Tour on Discovery+ and GOLFTV.
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