Tour Championship Recap

Story posted August 29, 2023 in CommRadio, Sports by Rob Cardini

Finally, the long and grueling 2023 PGA Golf year has come to an end with none other than young phenom Viktor Hovland taking home the FedEx Cup Championship this past Sunday.

It was a season filled with plenty of drama due to the newly formed and Saudi-backed golf league LIV Golf, and also a season filled with many thrilling wins and moments.

But what many will remember the most is the 25-year-old Hovland finishing off the season in thrilling fashion.

Hovland came into the FedEx Cup playoffs ranked 7 in total points accumulated from the season with 1,795. So it was very fitting when he finished tied for 13th at the first of three FedEx Cup playoff events.

But it was in the second of the three tournaments that Hovland truly started to make his mark and start a record-breaking run. Hovland came into the final day of the event sitting at eight under par which was three shots back of the lead making it a very doable comeback, but Hovland had other plans.

Hovland came out and shot a personal record round of nine under par 61. It would give Hovland the win at a final of 17 under par, two strokes better than Matt Fitzpatrick.

Because of this win, Hovland was then slated as the number two seed in the final PGA event of the year, the Tour Championship. He would start the tournament at eight under par only trailing world number one Scottie Scheffler.

While Hovland played very solid golf the first two days of the tournament he wasn’t making the most noise. That would go to another young star Colin Morikawa who shot a tournament record 15 under par the first two days leaving him tied for the lead with Hovland after two days of golf.

On Saturday, more commonly known as “moving day” in golf, Hovland separated himself from the pack finishing the day at 20 under par for the tournament with the second closest guy a massive six shots below him.

Yet no lead is ever safe in golf and getting hot at the right time or right round is something Hovland became very familiar with this year. As mentioned before Hovland had a personal best round the previous Sunday to win him the tournament but he also choked his opportunity of winning the Masters this year after starting that tournament with an opening round of seven under par but losing.

And just for a split second, it seemed as though Hovland had opened the window to Xander Schauffele who had cut the lead down to just three strokes. But then on the Par 4 14th hole, Hovland made a 23-foot par putt that gave him back all the momentum.

  Hovland would end up shooting seven under for the round and 27 under par for the tournament, five strokes better than anyone else.

Hovland capped off an incredible season of golf with back-to-back wins on the biggest stage collecting a cool 21 million dollars over the last two weeks. Hovland captioned a recent Instagram post saying “Fun when you feel like you cannot miss!”

The golf world will now take a few weeks off and shift its focus over to the Ryder Cup where Hovland will try to stay hot and help the Europeans defeat the Americans.

Rob Cardini is a third-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email rvc5706@psu.edu.