Viktor Hovland catches Scottie Scheffler late Saturday to take lead at the Travelers
CROMWELL, Conn. — There are days when Scottie Scheffler looks as if he is about to turn a golf tournament into a documentary about inevitability. Friday at the Travelers Championship was one of those days. He shot 60, took the lead and made TPC River Highlands look like the kind of place where he might spend the weekend conducting business, signing for birdies and politely ruining everyone else’s plans.
Viktor Hovland had other ideas Saturday.
Fans coming to the course to witness a coronation were instead treated 18 holes of back-and-forth shot making, with a twist at the end.
Hovland did not just hang around in the third round at TPC River Highlands. He announced himself early, absorbed Scheffler’s best stretch late and then took the lead on the final hole, shooting 6-under 64 to reach 20 under for the tournament. Scheffler, after appearing to seize control with four birdies in five holes on the back nine, bogeyed the 18th and settled for a 67, leaving him one shot behind Hovland entering Sunday.
“It was really fun,” Hovland said. “It’s been a while since I’ve been in this position.”
When he’s on, Viktor Hovland looks like one of the most talented players in the world, but he has also spent parts of the last few seasons looking like a man trying to find the instruction manual for his own swing. When things click, as they did Friday and Saturday, his tempo and his ball flight look robotically precise. When he is off, it can look like someone scrambling to reboot a laptop in a thunderstorm.
Saturday, paired in the last group of the day with the No. 1 player in the world, was more progress.
The Norwegian birdied the first hole to get within one of Scheffler. He made another at the third after Scheffler had stuffed his approach to 2 feet. At the fourth, Hovland hit his approach inside Scheffler and made the putt to tie him at 17 under.
Hovland, with a grin on his face many times as he walked the fairways, did not look like a player who was nervous to be in the final pairing. He looked like a guy who was so comfortable in his surroundings that he might start looking for snacks and the remote.
For much of the front nine, though, neither player could separate from the other. Both failed to birdie the par-5 sixth, the easiest hole on the course. Scheffler had driven it into thick rough, recovered well enough to leave himself 16 feet for birdie and left the putt short. Hovland flared a fairway wood well right, escaped and made par. On the seventh, Scheffler had to make a 9-footer to save par after a choppy chip ran past the hole.
Then came the first real wobble.
At the 10th, both players made bogey. Scheffler missed a 5-footer for par, his second bogey of the week, and Hovland missed from 9 feet. Suddenly, with Akshay Bhatia making noise ahead of them, the lead was shared by the three players at 16 under. Briefly, the tournament had the smell of a Travelers Saturday, which is to say something strange could happen at any moment.
However, Scheffler blew that scent out of the air over the next five holes.
He hit a gap wedge to inside four feet at the 11th and made birdie. He birdied the par-5 13th after driving into a fairway bunker and wedging to nine feet. At the 14th, after Hovland hit a low runner that flew 232 yards and rolled 79 more, Scheffler drove it 325 yards, left himself 87 yards and flighted a wedge to less than three feet.
At the driveable 15th, Scheffler left himself a delicate pitch from 41 feet and stabbed down on it perfectly, leaving 2 feet 10 inches for birdie. Hovland made birdie, too, but Scheffler had reached 20 under after three consecutive birdies and four in five holes.
That felt like the moment when the world No. 1 might begin to pull away. Instead, Hovland kept pace.
Both players parred the 16th and 17th. Then at the 18th, Hovland hit the fairway, then hit a radar-guided wedged to 10 feet and made the birdie putt to reach 20 under. Scheffler, meanwhile, hit a wedge from 130 yards out rolled off the back-left of the green. His chip ran 10 feet past, and he missed the comebacker to save par.
Suddenly, the two-shot swap left Hovland on top of the leaderboard, alone, with 18 holes to go.
Scheffler said afterward he felt good with his irons but “could have hit a few more fairways,” and that sounds about right. This was not a bad round. It was a good round that got nicked at the end, and he and his caddie, Ted Scott, went to the range after Scheffler spoke briefly with the media on Saturday evening.
Hovland, meanwhile, sounded like a player whose confidence is catching up to his ball striking. He said he is process-driven, and that seeing the shots he wants to hit gives him confidence. Doing it next to Scheffler, in front of a large Saturday crowd, was “a bonus.”
Hovland leads Scheffler by one, with Bhatia four shots back. Like Bhatia, Patrick Cantlay is also at 15 under after finishing with a 65, and there are too many birdies available at TPC River Highlands to pretend Sunday is only a two-man show.
But it sure feels like one.
Scheffler is still Scheffler, and one shot is not much. But Hovland has momentum, the lead and growing trust in his game. The Travelers has produced enough late chaos to know better than to script the ending early. Still, after Saturday, one thing is clear.
Scottie Scheffler did not run away. Viktor Hovland ran with him, then passed him at the wire.
David Dusek is a senior writer for Golfweek.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Viktor Hovland catches Scottie Scheffler late Saturday to take lead at the Travelers
