If golf swings were children’s books, Viktor Hovland‘s would be Goldilocks.

Hovland is what’s known in golf instruction circles as a “tinkerer.” He always feels his golf swing is always too hot or cold; never just right — a combination that has turned a prolific young star into one of professional golf’s hardest workers but also potentially one of its over-thinkers.

In just the last 2 years, Hovland has hired, fired, re-hired, and re-fired his swing coach Joe Mayo to pursue his best golfing self. The result has been one of the most wildly vacillating two-year stretches for any high-level pro in recent memory, an array of sky-scraping highs (a Tour Championship victory, top-5s at each of the majors, a near-miss runner-up at the PGA Championship in ’23) and bottom-dwelling depths (MCs at the Masters, U.S. and British Opens in ’24 — not to mention a broken toe to finish off the year).

But now, Hovland has resurfaced for the start of the third act of his recent competitive life: the 2025 season. Hovland, like many other European stars, is in Dubai for the DP World Tour’s Desert Classic this week, where he will deploy the swing he has spent the better part of the last several months working to improve. The problem, he says, is that improvement is coming slowly.

“Yeah, I mean, to be honest with you, I’d like to be a little bit more hopeful,” Hovland told the DP World Tour. “But it’s been very challenging. Even with the off-season that I had, I was hoping to make a little bit more progress, feel a little bit better about my game. But it’s been … it’s been challenging. It’s a hard game, but I do feel like I’m headed in the right direction.”