State of the Game: Viktor Hovland Proves Himself Wrong at Valspar

Any burst of confidence when selecting the winner of a PGA Tour event BEFORE the tournament begins has once again proven to rank between foolish and fantasy by 

Viktor Hovland winning the Valspar Championship on Sunday, because if even Viktor Hovland would not have picked Viktor Hovland to win what chance do the rest of us have?

With 72 more holes of PGA Tour golf in the books, the fleeting state of the PGA Tour game once again took an unexpected turn. 

Since finishing third in last year's PGA Championship, Hovland posted only one top-10 finish - a T2 at the FedEx St. Jude Championship, the opening round of the playoffs - in 14 starts, missing the cut in each of the last two majors of 2024. He had missed three consecutive cuts coming into Valspar.  

"It's been quite the struggle the past year and a half, so for me to come back and win this tournament is quite incredible because, yeah, I was not very hopeful with my game leading into this week and, yeah, just goes to show this game is pretty crazy," Hovland said after edging Justin Thomas by one shot for his seventh career PGA Tour victory.

Two-time major champion on World No. 3 Xander Schauffele showed signs of finding his footing in his third event back from injury. 

 "I wouldn't say, with my three tournaments, to be fair, to myself, I say I came back probably two of the hardest cuts to make in our entire

 season, two out of the top 5, I would say," Xander said. "Bay Hill and PLAYERS. So I did myself a favor there coming back on those two events (smiling) not excited about everything that I did, but I think try to used to as a building block going into these next two weeks."

Schauffele's final-round, 5-under-par 66 at Valspar featured six birdies against a single bogey, earning him a T12 result. After two rounds, he sat at T5 only to struggle through a third-round, 4-over-par 75 complete with four bogies and a double-bogey 7 on the par-5 10th hole. The 68 and 66 were the two lowest rounds of the 12 he's played the last three weeks.

"I just felt like I needed to get back to me just playing, whether it's kind of gross golf or dirty golf, just get

 the ball in the hole."

Question: "So today was grinding?"

"A little bit more just get back to playing of the just competing and playing. I lost a little bit of that coming back, I just want to swing it really well and have everything kind of trending for the majors and all that good stuff, so most importantly I think what I've always hung my hat on was that I'm able to get the ball in the hole no matter what it looks like."

If you are looking a showcase into the capricious and mercurial state of a PGA Tour professional, with razor-thin margins challenging the belief of each and every one of them, look no further than 35-year-old Tour veteran Sam Ryder.  

Ryder finished T16 at Valspar for his eighth consecutive made cut of 2025. He's 8-for-8 with back-to-back top-20 finishes (he was T14 at The Players) and has posted four top-25 finishes this year. He ranks second in Strokes-Gained putting in 2025, up from ranking 122nd in the same category a year ago. 

Last year, from March through October, not counting opposite-field events, Ryder missed the cut in 8-of-10 PGA Tour events, and in most he was not even close, missing six cuts by five shots or more. Ryder fell to 127th in the FedEx Cup rankings by August, missing the PGA Tour playoffs altogether. 

It wasn't until the Butterfield Bermuda where he broke through, posting a second-round, 9-under-par 62, tying his career low-round on the PGA Tour by posting 10 birdies before settling for a bogey on the final hole.  

"I think off the tee is where a lot of it starts for me and it's been kind of the theme for me," Ryder said after the round. "I feel like if I drive it well, then I play well. Iron play's a strength of mine, feels like it's been a strength. So out here, just trying to put the ball in the fairway and attack. ...  

Ryder admitted the rough patch in his 2024 season had been wearing on him. 

"I'm trying to get a little bit of that kind of confidence back," Ryder said. "I feel like I've had - I've been in contention, I haven't won on Tour but this is my seventh season, I made the Playoffs every year to this point, so I feel like I belong.  

"I've been working really hard to try and work on my game, but I also know that I'm in a good place, I'm not kind of beating myself up too much. 

"There's obviously a lot at stake coming down to the end of the FedExCup season, but I feel pretty relaxed. Honestly, I feel like I'm doing all the right things and things will work themselves out and all is well."

Ryder finished the week with a minus-14, 72-hole score of 270 and a T5 finish, five shots behind the tournament winner Rafael Campos. 

More importantly the finish moved him from 135th on the FedEx Cup standings to 122nd, with the Top 125 exempt into all Full-Field events and THE PLAYERS this season. Despite missing the Tour's final 2024 stop, Ryder finished at No. 125 three points ahead of Zac Blair.

Ryder currently sits 64th in the FedEx Cup standings and 152nd in the Official World Golf Rankings

Players Who Appear To Be on the Rise: 

Closing with three consecutive 2-under-par 69s at Valspar, Corey Connors finished T8 for his third consecutive top-10 finish. He started the three-week run with a third-place finish at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Conners currently sits No. 7 in the FedEx Cup standings. 

Lucas Glover posted his third top-10 finish of 2025, finishing T8 at Valspar, just a week after his T3 at The Players. Glover also finished T3 at the season's second Signature event, the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. The 45-year-old Tour veteran from Greenville, SC, currently finds himself 13th in the FedEx Cup standings and ranked 28th in the world by the OWGR. 

Aaron Rai has three consecutive finishes T14 or better, a streak which started with a season-best T4 at the Mexico Open. He also finished T15 at the season-opener, The Sentry. 

Ben An finished T16 at Valspar, his second top-20 in three starts. He finished T8 at the Arnold Palmer Invitation. 

Luke Clanton made another cut, finishing T42 at Valspar. The 21-year-old member of the Florida State men's golf team has made three cuts in five PGA Tour starts, and has earned his PGA Tour card through the same PGA Tour University program that launched Ludvig Aberg two years. Clanton, who already has three top-5 finishes in 13 career PGA Tour events, will join the Tour in June at the of his FSU season.

"It's hard to even think about what happened, really," Clanton said about his PGA Tour starts. "To have that nine-month, ten-month stretch of golf is, to be competing on the PGA TOUR against the best, it's crazy."

Davis Riley's T7 finish was his best finish on the PGA Tour - not counting an opposite-field T6 in Puerto Rico three weeks ago - since his win at the Charles Schwab last May.

Kevin Yu finished T12 at Valspar, and has posted three finishes T17 or better this year. In his last 14 starts, a period that started with his first PGA Tour win at the Sanderson Farms Classic in October, Yu has six finishes T17 or better. 

Matt McCarty, who arrived on the PGA Tour last year courtesy of three Korn Ferry Tour victories and promoptly won the second PGA Tour event he entered - the Black Desert Championship in October - appears to be on a bit of a rebound. After a stretch in which he struggled through missing cuts in five of seven Tour events dating back to last year's Shriners, including three consecutive cuts in January-February, McCarty has strung together the following finishes - T63, T48, T20 (at The Players) and a T16 at Valspar last week. 

The 27-year-old left-hander from Scottsdale, AZ, is still just 13 starts into his PGA Tour career. 

Still Struggling at the Moment: 

Cam Young has missed four cuts in his last five starts - the exeption a T61 at The Players. Young finished T8 at The Sentry in January and T12 in Phoenix. Ranked as high as No. 13 in the world a year ago, Young sits 66th in the FedEx Cup standings and 59th in the world. 

Since finishing T5 at Pebble Beach last month, Cam Davis has missed four consecutive cuts, the latest at Valspar, this time by one shot when his 3-under-par nine fell just short. Davis has dropped from No. 8 to No. 34 in the FedEx Cup standings during the six-week stretch. 

Patton Kazzire, caught on camera kicking his putter last week en route to withdrawing from Valspar claiming a back injury, has endured quite a frustrating stretch. Kizzire, who won first event of the 2024 FedEx Fall series, had missed six consecutive cuts by a grand total of 10 strokes prior to Valspar. Kazzire has already missed the cut by a single shot three times this season.  

Not including the opposite-field Puerto Rico Open, where he finished T16, Chris Gotterup seven-of-8 cuts in regular PGA Tour events, none by more than three shots. His seven missed cuts have come by a total of 16 shots. 

Thriston Lawrence, who secured his first PGA Tour card thanks to his finish in the 2024 DP World Tour final standings, missed the cut by 8 shots at Valspar, his third missed cut in five PGA Tour events.