It was the 2023 Memorial Tournament. Viktor Hovland came back from a four-shot deficit on the back nine on Sunday to card a birdie on 17, the only one of the round on that hole. He also went ahead to score a clutch par putt on the 18 to tie with Denny McCarthy before beating him in a playoff. Now, fast forward a year, and it looks like being the defending champion of the event would only help him to a small extent.

On Tuesday, the golfer was spotted in an interview ahead of the start of the tournament at the Muirfield Village Golf Club. He was queried on whether coming back to a contest like this as a defending champ would help him. Especially when he suffered a bad start to the year on the 2024 PGA Tour calendar, to which he was quick to reply honestly.

Viktor Hovland comes out candid on his title defense

“Sure, that helps,” responded Hovland, during the press conference, before swiftly adding how the par-72, 7571-yard course would still be a challenge at the end of the day. He said, “This golf course doesn’t care about your memories or good vibes. It’s going to punish you and bring you down if you miss it on the wrong sides,” while hinting at the field’s 2023 performance. The pro’s lowest round all week back then was 69, and he was the only player to break par in all of the four rounds.

The golfer also went ahead to emphasize the difficulty of the course once again, saying, “I think it’s one of the hardest courses we play all year, so you definitely have to bring your A game, whether you’re defending champion or not.” He had back then carded out figures of 71-71-69-70 over the four days of play totaling 7-under 281 to tie with McCarthy. The then-25-year-old barely got into the front of the green on the 18th in the playoff and holed a 7-foot par putt.

The Norwegian had, back then, dished out one of his most mature performances, by not making worse than bogey all week at the Muirfield Village. He scored a total of 19 birdies while restricting himself to just 12 bogeys over the four rounds. He did so at a place where the final three holes were the toughest all week and he was able to birdie two of the three on Saturday as well as one of them on Sunday to keep himself in the race. “I played smart. I played my game. And I came up clutch this time,” Hovland had said.

One can’t help but take awe at the “course management” that the Norwegian player took to clinch his fourth victory on the PGA Tour. But it was all thanks to none other than Edoardo Molinari, the Italian big brain, who helped look at the golfer’s game from a data-analytic point of view.

The ‘Eduardo Molinari’ effect on Hovland

The three-time DP World Tour champ compared the athlete’s game to poker and added that his frequencies were “a bit off.” The golfer and his ex-coach, Joe Mayo, had reached out to Molinari after a couple of close finishes at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, The PLAYERS, and the Masters. “I think our course management or our strategy is not very good,” said Hovland as he recounted what Mayo said back then.

“They just crunched some numbers and basically saw the stats kind of tell the same story,” added the pro as he divulged the effect the Italian had on him at the 2023 Memorial Tournament. The result? Well, he changed a bit of his gameplay which made all the difference; “Just a little bit different strategy, and particularly wedges to — or pitching wedge to 8-irons is where I’m way more conservative, especially at a golf course like this.” 

Viktor Hovland, meanwhile, has not had the best of runs in 2024. Regardless of his bad start, he would be hoping to successfully defend his title at the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday and carry forward the momentum he gained from the T3 at the PGA Championship.