Who is Viktor Hovland’s golf coach? Exploring the man behind the Norwegian golfer
During 2022-23, Viktor Hovland has had one of the best seasons of his professional career, if not the best. Numerous factors have led him to the position he is in today, but, without a doubt, one of the most important has a first and last name - Joseph Mayo.
Mayo has been Viktor Hovland's coach since the beginning of the current season. He is a highly respected coach among high-profile players and one of the pioneers in the use of the TrackMan simulator for high-performance golf training.
Viktor Hovland's coach grew up in Cedar Grove, Tennesee, and as a teenager played volleyball. An injury that affected one of his eyes ended his volleyball career, which is when he discovered golf.
His newfound love of sports led him to start coaching at a club in Palm Springs, but the job didn't grab him right away. After a while he quit and drastically changed his career path, spending about a decade playing poker professionally.
But they say you always go back to where you were happy and, for Joseph Mayo, that happened in 2008, while browsing through an issue of Golf magazine. In it, Mayo discovered the TrackMan machine and immediately saw its enormous potential for golf training.
As Mayo himself told Golf magazine in 2018, he promptly took a job at a retail golf store in Vegas and convinced a wealthy customer to buy a TrackMan for $25,000, offering him free golf lessons for life. Thus came the opportunity to meet the machine in person.
It wasn't long before Mayo became an expert in handling all the information the TrackMan provides and its application to training. So much so, that another respected trainer, Grant Waite, offered him to work together with some professional players.
This opened the doors to the world of high-profile golfers. Today Joseph Mayo not only trains renowned stars, such as Viktor Hovland, but also has an extensive and prolific social media work as a golf instructor.
Results of the professional relationship between Viktor Hovland and Joseph Mayo
Viktor Hovland and Joseph Mayo have worked together during the current season, and the results are visible. Of the $26.6 million Hovland has earned during his four years as a professional, $14.1 million has been earned during 2022-23.
This is the first season in which Viktor Hovland has won more than one tournament of the PGA Tour (he has won two and is on the verge of triumphing in the TOUR Championship).
If that wasn't enough, his victories came in high-profile tournaments, such as the Memorial Tournament and the BMW Championship. This characteristic will be maintained if he ultimately wins the final tournament of the FedEx Cup.
In addition, Hovland stood out for his performance in the majors of the season: T7 in The Masters, T2 in the PGA Championship, 19th in the U.S. Open, and T13 in The Open Championship. The Norwegian's stability was such that he did not even suffer a cut in the 22 tournaments he played during the season.