After 90 minutes of truly bizarre golf at Albany Golf Club in the Bahamas, Viktor Hovland managed to finally shake some sense back into the final round of the Hero World Challenge and potentially secure an unexpected victory.
But before his brilliance, there was the theater of the absurd.
Collin Morikawa had a five-stroke lead coming into Sunday and appeared as if he was cruising to a win that would secure him not only the $1 million first-place payday but vault him to World No. 1 for the first time in his career. But then Morikawa hit a wayward approach on the par-4 fourth hole that resulted in a lost ball and an eventual double-bogey 6.
And that was followed by a wayward second shot on the par-5 sixth hole (his ball was unfortunately dress with a nice clump of mud) that resulted in a lost ball and an eventual double-bogey 7.
And then on the par-5 ninth hole, he chunked a greenside chip en route to a bogey 6. So the man with rounds of 68-66-64 had a 41 on his opening nine holes to become an also ran.
But Morikawa wasn’t the only one struggling. On consecutive holes Patrick Reed and Brooks Koepka how his shots into Albany’s native rocks and grasses that required left-handed punch outs.
Benefiting from all this was Sam Burns, who was three under on his round and suddenly had inherited the lead at 15 under par. But then suddenly he posted a triple-bogey 7 on the driveable par-4 14th hole when he three times couldn’t hold a chip shot on the green.
Enter Hovland, who quietly was three under on his round and 15-under total when he hit a driver long through the green into the back bunker on the 14th hole. From there, Hovland show an incredible bit of a talent and good timing with this nifty shot.
For the third time on the week he’d eagled that hole, and he wasn’t done. After hitting a perfect drive and reaching the green in two on the par-5 15th, Hovland deftly rolled in this putt in for a second straight eagle:
Six off the lead to start the day, Hovland was now two strokes in the lead and on his way to having a nice little finish to an already impressive two-win 2021 calendar year.