PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Viktor Hovland, Collin Morikawa and Matt Wolff are “first-timers” in name only at the Players Championship this week. They have already established themselves as PGA Tour winners since turning pro in June and appear stamped for stardom.
Hovland still remembers the conversations that he and Wolff had last year as students at Oklahoma State about their classes and their homework load; now they’re playing together along with Morikawa, who played at the University of Cal-Berkeley, in a threesome for the first two rounds.
“It’s kind of taken a 180,” Hovland said.
“The fact that those three guys have won already is unbelievable,” said Justin Thomas, who didn’t take kindly to being told he’s no longer among the young guns and now qualifies as a savvy veteran at age 26. “They probably don’t even realize how impressive it is. But they also understand how talented they are, and we do, too, and they’re going to be out here for a long time.”
Wolff, 20, won the 2019 NCAA individual title before turning pro and was the first of the three to win, claiming the 3M Open in his fourth start as a professional when he sank an eagle putt on the 72nd hole to edge Morikawa and Bryson DeChambeau.
Wolff sported spectacles to his press conference, which led one reporter to wonder if he was wearing them to look smart. Wolff smiled and said that he’s near-sighted and not a fan of contacts. He doesn’t wear any eyewear when he plays, which explains why he sometimes can’t see his prolific blasts off the tee.
When asked how often his tee shots soar out of sight, Wolff paused and said, “Probably a couple of times a round. For someone with good eyes, I never hit it out of sight. I’m not a freak.”
But freakishly talented he is, and none too shy to tout his other-worldly abilities with a club in his hand.
“I want to be the No. 1 player in the world whether that’s now or in 10 years,” he said.
Though he concedes that Cameron Champ hits it farther than him, Wolff was hard-pressed to pick another player’s skillset that he would trade for his own.
“I think that when I’m on, I’m the best player in the world or have the chance to be,” he said. “When it all clicks, I wouldn’t take anyone else’s game.”
Hovland, 22, is fast becoming one of the most accurate drivers of the golf ball on Tour. He was the last of the three to win, hoisting a trophy in his 12th start as a pro at the Puerto Rico Open last month. But his success earning low-amateur honors at both the Masters and U.S. Open in 2019 inspired his fellow young guns that they were capable of doing great things.
“Viktor beat up on us and we beat up on him,” Wolff said. “We know we’re just as good as him on any given day. When you see him low am, tie for 12th at the U.S. Open, it’s like if he can do it, we can too.”
But even Hovland expressed surprise that he and Wolff and Morikawa found the winner’s circle so quickly.
“I knew we were all capable of it,” Hovland said. “A lot of things have to go your way, so I’m surprised to see all three of us win.”
Morikawa, 23, says he’s the most mature of the bunch. He won the Barracuda Championship in his eighth Tour start, and hasn’t missed a cut as a professional. His string of 21 cuts in a row ranks as the longest streak on Tour.
“He’s like a robot,” said fellow Cal grad Max Homa. “He’s pretty much the perfect golfer. He hits the ball both ways. He hits it as solid as you can hit it. He putts it well, he chips it well. He does everything well. He’s who everyone would want their kid to grow up to be.”
Mature? A robot? Is that code for Morikawa being the latest low-wattage personality barreling off the academic assembly line with a diploma in one hand and a 5-iron in the other? Homa was quick to counter those concerns.
“He’s like the perfect robot if I built the robot, not a scientist, if a dude built it,” Homa said.
And what advice would Homa bestow on the Tour’s three new sensations?
“They seem to be doing a pretty good job,” Homa said. “I can’t imagine them not being on the Tour for the next 30 years. My only advice would be to enjoy it.”
That is exactly what they plan to do on Thursday and Friday at TPC Sawgrass.
“We’re going to try and beat each other but we’re going to have a cool two rounds of golf talking crap and pretending like it’s the good-old college days,” Hovland said.
“Maybe see two of us in the final group,” Wolff said.
The way these three have taken the Tour by storm, no one would put it past them.
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