Ro! Ro!
Norwegian Viktor Hovland took down world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler on the first playoff hole during a Monday finish at the Travelers Championship to earn his eighth PGA Tour title, and did it after an incredible turnaround in driving performance, thanks to a change in setup off the tee.
Heading into the Travelers, Hovland ranked 104th on Tour in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee, the first time he’s been outside the top-100 in the stat since earning his card. But a memorable week at TPC River Highlands saw the 28-year-old lead the field off the tee en route to victory, switching into the Ping G440 LST just a few weeks prior.
During the season, Hovland has worked with Ping Tour reps testing the newer G440 LST and also the K head, to take advantage of the better speed and spin consistency on the head, but would fall back to his reliable Ping G425 LST driver, which he had gamed in all but one of his PGA Tour wins up until Monday.
“I tried out the new 440 last year because it is faster,” Hovland said at the start of the season at the WM Phoenix Open. “The spin consistency off the face is a joke. If I hit it off the heel or the toe with a 425, the spin discrepancy is very large. Like if I hit it off the toe, I can spin it under 2000. If I hit it off the heel, I can maybe get up to 3000. Versus the 440, it’s very tight. It goes from maybe 2000 to 2600, so a huge gap.
“However, the problem is it launches a little bit higher for me. And for some reason, just with the setup that I’ve tested with, it tends to go a bit more to the right. Right now, with my golf swing, when I get stuck, my miss is already a high right miss. If I hit this driver, it’s just getting exenuated.”
Despite this, Hovland and the team kept trying to find an answer, experimenting with the team with hotmelt forward to get the desired launch he was looking for.
“With the extra spin he was getting, we knew we needed to go a little further and lighten the back weight a little bit, get that center of gravity moved just a touch forward to help reduce the spin,” Ping tour rep Spender Rothluebber told GolfWRX. “It’s something we’ve done with a lot of players, but in this case we had to go a little further. To both get the trajectory down, as well as the spin.”
After more testing and three weeks off after the PGA Championship, Hovland turned up in Canada for the Canadian Open without his security blanket, making a pretty drastic call to leave the G425 across the border. That week, Hovland went on to finish third in the tournament, third in driving accuracy, and positive in SG: Off the tee.
The change in head and spin consistency wasn’t the only helping factor for Hovland off the tee. He’s also moved to Fujikura’s Ventus TR Black 6 X with VeloCore+, and away from the legacy Fujikura Speeder 661 TR X that he has played for much of his career, in an attempt to reduce spin even further.
Hovland’s win was the first victory for the new Ventus Black with enhanced VeloCore+ technology which is created to deliver extra stability and improved energy transfer, with lower launch and spin rates.
See below for Hovland’s full driver setup:
Driver: Ping G440 LST 9.0 @ 7.6 degrees
Ping adapter: Flat Standard
CG Shifter: 29 grams neutral
Hot Melt: 5 grams forward
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus TR Black 6X with VeloCore+
Length: 45.75 inches
Tip: 1 inch
Swingweight: D5+
