06 December 2021: It was meant to be a coronation. Collin Morikawa was five ahead and the top ranking beckoned him on Sunday at the Albany Golf Club in the Bahamas. But with the Sunshine in his eyes, Morikawa blinked. As many as five golfers emerged into contention as they chased the opportunity. Viktor Hovland began the day six shots back, pouncing quietly from the back for a memorable Hero World Challenge victory over Scottie Scheffler.
On a bizarre final day, Jordan Spieth and Henrik Stenson drove off the wrong tee box on the ninth hole. The layout swapped the tee boxes of the ninth and seventeenth on Sunday, and the duo were penalised a couple of shots. Not that it mattered. They were first group out and finished last on the leaderboard.
It mattered though that Morikawa found it hard to make a good start. He missed makeable putts from inside ten feet on the first three holes. Morikawa complicated his life and opened the door for his colleagues when his errant tee shots at the fourth and sixth cost him the lead. Morikawa shot 76 and ended up tied in fifth with Justin Thomas, who worked his way there with a brilliant 64.
Hovland pulled away from the messy crowd with back to back eagles at the 14th and 15th holes. But they did not come easy. His wedge did the magic from the bunker on the 14th, while his putter did the trick from twenty feet on the next.
“I didn’t think a win was going to be very possible,” Hovland said. “But I know this course is tricky. You can make birdies, but it’s easy to make bogeys and doubles. If I put a good score up there, you never know what’s going to happen.”
“But after I made three birdies in a row at the end of the front nine and I got to No. 9 and I was in the greenside bunker and I looked up at the leaderboard and I saw I believe I was tied for the lead, maybe one shot behind or something like that, that’s when I knew that, OK, if I play really well on the back nine, I’ve got a chance.”
“Yeah, there’s not that many similarities to Norway, so I don’t really get it myself,” added Hovland about his success in tropical settings. “Usually there’s trouble off the tee and you’ve got to hit it straight, I think that helps. But frankly, the grass here, the Paspalum and the Bermuda, is not something that I’m very used to, so I don’t know.
“For some reason I just play well in those events.”
Scheffler could have forced this into a playoff. He came home on a hot streak, but after four straight birdies, the fifth did not drop on the 18th. That allowed Hovland the luxury of making bogeys on the last two holes and still clinch the title by one from the American.
“I felt like I played pretty well. I had really struggled with my putting pretty much the whole week until maybe the back nine yesterday, made a few putts,” Scheffler said. “Outside of that, the first two days I putted so bad, so today just to see a few go in and kind of get going was nice and felt like I gave myself a chance there at the end and I’m pleased with that. I’m pleased with how I performed on the back nine.”
