Hovland’s coaching change, Scheffler’s comeback, golf’s surprising turnaround

Welcome back to Monday Finish, where after a long season (four months! Unless you include FedEx Fall, President Cup, Hero, Grant Thornton, PNC Championship, Showdown…) we are finally back, a gang. . The PGA Tour season is here. In the news!

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I LOVE GOLF EQUIPMENT

The best golf photo changer.

As we come to the end of 2024 I’ve learned a lot about how, big picture, this was a bad year for professional golf. Although I don’t think that’s true to a small degree – there were a lot of good things, like Scottie Schefflerall season, Xander Schauffelegreat success, Lydia Kofairy tale, Nelly Kordarule, Bryson DeChambeau‘s star rise – I understand the point. The ratings are pretty good, golf fans are between “annoyed” and “indifferent” about the ongoing split between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour, and the split continues to disrupt and disrupt the action on the field with no clear end in sight. to see. It’s not good.

But let’s put that aside for a moment and consider an entirely different narrative, far removed from the game’s golf record. Golf, as a whole, has completely remade its image. People love golf now. Before, they didn’t. Seriously.

A new study from the National Golf Foundation (NGF) sheds light on this matter thanks to the “golf opinion” survey (here) it has conducted several times over the past decade. Findings? A clear decline in Americans who misrepresent golf. In 2013 57 percent of respondents described golf negatively. NGF research has found common descriptors such as these it’s boring, outdated, pretentious, scary. Anyone who has spent time playing golf is familiar with this country club stigma and the feeling that the game is exclusive and unacceptable, even if do decide to play, very slowly.

But NGF data shows that perception was already changing before the Covid-19 golf crisis. In 2019 47 percent used negative descriptions. In 2022? Only 37 percent. And by 2024 that number drops to 31 percent. That’s a big throw, which cuts the disagreement in half. That’s great for golf. Great for golf enthusiasts. And that’s a sign something it worked — even if it’s still unclear what that thing is. It might sound a bit like a USGA focus-group fever dream but the NGF highlights words like these fun, exciting, interesting again it’s cool.

During that same period, there has been a “tremendous” increase in golf participation, meaning that 15 percent of Americans now play golf on- or off-course (think TopGolf, etc. for “off-course”) , from 10 percent. But that’s still a human waste, which means non-golfers need to feel a lot better about the game, too. Specifically, that 26 percent change in the negative translates to 70-80 million people feeling better about golf. It may not resolve the PGA Tour-LIV split. But as someone who loves golf and wants other people to feel the same way? Many people love golf now. Those are the things about golf that I love.

(Full NGF article here.)

THE WINNER

Who won the week?

According to OWGR, there were no official events that took place last week. I am pretty sure this is the only week of the year that is true. So there are no championship winners. But hopefully some of you made it because of the new golf clubs under the tree and the promise of a new golf season on the horizon. Next week we’ll get back to the real thing. The winners. The losers. Everything in between. Currently? We are all winners.

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NON-WINNERS

Our last two FedEx Cup champions.

Many of us look forward to the holidays as a time to relax and recharge, ready to start fresh in the new year. And most of us get to the real holidays and realize that it doesn’t always work. Come in Scottie Scheffler again Viktor Hovland. While our two most recent FedEx Cup players may not be coming off the holidays as wasted and stuffed as the rest of us, they haven’t arrived in Kapalua in top form.

Scheffler, in fact, does not come at all. He suffered a glass-related injury while preparing for Christmas dinner, according to a statement from his agent Blake Smithit involved “a puncture wound to the palm of his right hand from broken glass.” He was still carrying the glass, which required surgery. Smith said he was expected to be 100 percent back in 3-4 weeks and is scheduled to play for American Express — but after nine wins in 2024 that’s not how Scheffler wants to start the new year.

Hovland, meanwhile, will be in Hawaii but may be a little more limited. The Norwegian posted what appeared to be an X-ray of a broken toe on Instagram with the caption, “Bed frame 1 – 0 me”. The 27-year-old is world number 8 and was eyeing 2025 as a bounce-back year after a disappointing 2024 and four-month tournament layoff. This is not the start he had in mind; he told Norwegian Golf you face four to six weeks of recovery.

THEY DON’T HIT SHORTS

Five things that happened in last year’s Sentry.

Does the past year feel like forever – or just yesterday? From January 2024:

1. Viktor Hovland confirmed his breakup with the skating coach Joe Mayo due to greater or lesser compositional differences. Yes, this just happened again (more on that in a minute). Time is a flat circle.

2. Jason Day released his new Malbon sponsorship. It may feel like they’ve been together forever but Day x Malbon is only one year old. Same with Xander Schauffele and Descente, for that matter. I Monday Finish I hear we have some collaborations coming up this week, and…

3. Tiger Woods left Nike, the first domino to fall when Sun Day Red was launched. Okay, this didn’t happen of The Watchman. But on Jan. 8, 2024, Woods confirmed parting ways with the Swoosh, the end of golf’s most famous sponsorship.

4. Scottie Scheffler finished T5. It was his only top-five start of the season; he would earn 15 in 21 events, including nine wins. Come on.

5. Chris Kirk it won. It was his only top-five finish in his first season, though he posted two more top-10 finishes and reached the Tour Championship. Big week ahead – someone is going to make it count.

ONE THOUGHT

From Xander Schauffele.

Don’t let the pre-round shank get you down.

It means so Xander Schauffelethis week’s pre-tournament favorite, World No. 2 and my latest guest The warmthIt’s an interesting driving range interview that I encourage you to watch here or below.

“I’ve been sipping it a lot. Warming up in college, for some reason,” Schauffele said. “Not a a lotbut like, there were probably four races in a row where I took it out, and it helped me understand how important warming up is. It was a big lesson for me at the time.”

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ONE BIG QUESTION

Where will Hovland land next?

If the answer is “at his feet,” well, that’s just a little too strong. But the plot thickens with our Scandinavian hero, who was arguably the hottest golfer in the world at the end of 2023 but recorded two top 10s in 2024 as he shuffled swings and swing coaches. To some extent this was always the plan; we talked in 2023 about his responsibility to be the CEO Viktor Hovland the company and his desire to use coaches as resources; he never wants to be overly dependent.

Hovland told Norsk Golf that he and Joe Mayo break up about a month ago; I don’t trust my Norwegian enough to give me an accurate translation but it’s clear that they disagreed with Hovland’s way forward. Here we will rely on Google Translate:

“I feel like I have learned a lot now and I have a lot of knowledge, I don’t need someone to hold my hand anymore. It’s always good to have someone who can watch what I’m doing, watch the steps I take. So I send videos to another coach, but he is a mentor.”

One lesson Hovland took away from last season: he can compete even without his best stuff. Last year he finished T3 at the PGA Championship, after all, in the fall. That bodes well for 2025, even if he gets off on the wrong foot. So even though he’s feeling sluggish from the Norwegian winter break, rusty from a four-month break from competition and now with a broken toe on the toughest tour of the PGA Tour season?

“But golf is a strange game,” Hovland told Norsk. “I can suddenly find something that works.”

ONE THING YOU DON’T WATCH

Happy Gilmore 2.

Adam SandlerYou are back. Christopher McDonaldyou are back. Julie BowenYou are back. And now we have an ensemble cast Bryson DeChambeau, Scottie Scheffler and… Travis Kelce? Here he comes Happy Gilmore 2. In an era of hit-or-miss sequences, here’s hoping we’re happy to reboot this one.