As you all know, I do have a penchant for a peculiar commemoration so at the weekend I raised a toast to National Near Miss Day.
This observance celebrates that nail-nibbling incident back in 1989 when a humungous asteroid hurtled towards planet earth but missed us by 500,000 miles.
Funnily enough, that’s about the same distance the airport is to the destination of your city break when you book a cheap flight with Ryanair.
Anyway, this whole near miss lark got me thinking about a media golf junket a few years ago when I duffed one off the first tee in front of fellow players, event sponsors, promoters and a photographer who was documenting affairs on behalf of a PR company.
It probably would’ve been better had I taken a clean fresh air whiff, but the near miss meant this glancing blow sent my ball skittering about five feet in front of me.
And there it sat, mockingly, while all around the tee could be heard the unmistakable sound of suppressed hysterics.
Because my ball was in play, my three partners all blasted off and, inevitably, sent their respective drives soaring majestically into the sky.
Of course, such displays of golfing prowess merely compounded the folly of my own laughable ineptitude while the brief period of time that had elapsed between my first swipe and the build up to my second attempt had simply heightened the anticipation among the curious onlookers about what catastrophe they’d witness next.
I had to disappoint my captivated audience, however. Instead of tossing caution to the wind with a potentially disastrous recovery shot, I opted for the sensible, and eminently cowardly, dunt forward with a pokey 6-iron which at least got me up onto the fairway and far enough away from the ghoulish scrutiny and stifled guffaws of the first tee throng.
The reason I’m subjecting you to this fairly long-winded recollection is that the words of Viktor Hovland, in the aftermath of his win in the Valspar Championship, struck something of a chord.
“I’m still hitting a lot of disgusting shots,” admitted the Norwegian after claiming his first PGA Tour title since the summer of 2023.
Now, there’s an analysis that most of us will be able to relate to. Rather like death, golf can be a great leveller, eh?
Hovland’s victory was the sixth by a European golfer on the PGA Tour in 2025. In a Ryder Cup year, it was another shot across the US bows.
This latest success, though, was so out of the blue, even the blue itself was caught out.
Since that period in 2023 when he was one of the hottest golfers on the planet – he won the BMW Championship and the Tour Championship in successive weeks on the PGA Tour – Hovland had gone off the boil like a wonky kettle
He tinkered with a bit of this, tampered with a bit of that and tweaked and tuned a bit of the other, while going through more coaches than Park’s of Hamilton.
Prior to his Valspar conquest, Hovland had missed his last three cuts during a downbeat run which included an opening 80 in the Players Championship.
Golf, this fickle, flummoxing and fascinating auld game, is an inherently imperfect pursuit. As the grand slam-winning Bobby Jones said way back in the day, “no one will ever have golf under his thumb.”
That doesn’t stop them trying, of course, even if this search for perfection would make the quest for the Holy Grail look like a quick guddle in the lost property bin.
“I find it kind of weird that we're professional athletes and the people who are wanting to improve are somewhat looked at as, ‘oh he's a perfectionist, he's out on the perimeter searching too much’,” said Hovland when asked about his seemingly relentless adjustments and alterations.
“We are here to get better, and we are here to win tournaments. So, if you're not going to try to get better, what are you doing?”
Golfers are always a work in progress. They’re a bit like the Sagrada Familia. Even in the futile lands that this correspondent inhabits, there’s always something to build on, whether it’s a little thought here, a wee feel there or some pearl of wisdom plucked from goodness knows where.
At my level, of course, you tend to find that the less skilled the player, the more likely they are to share their ideas about the golf swing. And believe you me, I’ve taken on board advice from some spectacularly lousy sources.
But I digress. Hovland has always been a fascinating, fun and frank individual. During his struggles – and by his own admission the struggles are still ongoing despite this win – the Ryder Cup star would always give honest and open assessments of his inner workings.
In an age when media-trained athletes can often display about as much charisma as a redundant cooling tower, Hovland remains an engaging and enlightening individual.
After the trial and error, he’s going back to some of the methods of his unorthodox swing that had served him well during his initial rise to global prominence. The work goes on.
“Swing your swing,” the great Arnold Palmer once said of our unique motions. “Prized only by you, perfect in its imperfection.”
I’ll remember that sage advice when I duff it off the first tee at the next media jolly.
