Viktor Hovland rarely makes gear changes. Here’s why he’s making one at Augusta.
Augusta National and Jack Hirsh/GOLF
When it comes to club changes during major weeks, they’re usually few and far between. Club changes for guys who won in their last start before a major? Even rarer. But here we are at the 2025 Masters and Viktor Hovland is switching into a new driver right before the season’s first major, despite having won just two weeks ago in Tampa.
Hovland, of course, is no ordinary Tour pro. His pre-Masters press conference on Tuesday was filled with riffs on UFOs, movie discussions, swing mechanics, Augusta National‘s mowing patterns and of course, a last-minute Masters driver change.
He does things his own way, especially when it comes to gear, as some of the clubs, namely his Ping Glide 2.0 lob wedge and i210 irons, were released before he even turned pro in 2017 and ’18, respectively. Hovland has used the irons for all seven of his PGA Tour wins and his Ping G425 LST driver for all but his inaugural victory at the 2020 Puerto Rico Open.
At the Valspar Championship, Hovland gained just over two strokes off the tee, 19th in the field, but during some practice sessions just a few days ago, he wasn’t seeing the ball flight he wanted.
“I’d say my iron game has been really, really nice, but still was just having a hard time with the driver to get it exactly how I wanted to,” Hovland said Tuesday.
Hovland had done testing before with Ping’s new G440 drivers, but ultimately stuck with his gamer 425 because he said he wasn’t swinging well at the time.
“When I wasn’t swinging it well, those misses were just accentuated,” he said. “I hit those high right shots that I had before were even higher and further to the right. I didn’t really feel like testing it.”
Hovland is what we like to call a “hard switcher.” When he finds clubs he clubs he likes, he tends to stick with him. Interestingly enough, this is in total contrast to what he did in his first year as a professional when he used four different iron sets over the course of four weeks to secure his Tour card in 2019. But the i210s were part of that rotation, and once he settled on them, he hasn’t changed since.
But after his Valspar win and with how good he was hitting his irons, he finally felt ready to make a change with the driver. So he asked Ping Tour rep Kenton Oates to send him the G440 drivers he had tested previously.
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Lighter head weight allows for heavier back weight.
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FREE-HOSEL DESIGN
Saves weight to lower CG, increase forgiveness. Allows for more heel-side face flexing for consistent ball speed across face.
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ALSO AVAILABLE AT: PGA Tour Superstore
The new weapon for this week is a Ping G440 LST with a Fujikura Ventus Black Velocore+ 6-TX shaft, although Hovland admitted he’s “not too big into shafts and stuff.”
“I guess that new shaft is a little bit stiffer at the bottom, and with the G440, it’s way more forgiving,” Hovland said. “So the heel strikes and the toe strikes I’m able to keep the ball speed up compared to the other mis-hits. And the spin is just way tighter. If I hit it off the toe, it doesn’t drop down to 1,700; and if I hit it off the heel, it doesn’t go to 3,200.
“Really just excited about how much tighter the dispersion was and even getting a little bit more ball speed out with the new driver. Yeah, it’ll be exciting to see how it goes out there.”
GOLF’s Johnny Wunder spoke with Oates at Augusta National and will have exclusive content on the building of Hovland’s new driver coming Thursday.
Want to overhaul your bag for 2025? Find a club-fitting location near you at True Spec Golf.
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