Viktor Hovland finds alternate route driving Riviera’s difficult par-4 15th

LOS ANGELES – No hole at the Genesis Invitational plays more difficult than Riviera’s 15th, a 487-yard par 4 that features a cavernous bunker, a severe dogleg-right and a sharply sloping green.

Almost everyone in the field takes driver and tries to pound it down the left side, opening up the hole but leaving a demanding shot. Only about 41% of the field was finding the green in regulation.

Viktor Hovland has found a different route.

Instead of trying to fit his drive into a narrow landing area near the bunker, he lines up well right – down the adjacent 17th hole – and blasts away. If he hits his line, he leaves himself with a clear angle into the green. So far, so good, for he has made par each of the first two days – bettering the field scoring average (4.31).

Full-field scores from The Genesis Invitational

“I don’t know,” he said of his alternate route. “Just fits my eye.”

Hovland credited his former teammate at Oklahoma State, Zach Bouchou, with the idea. That’s the angle Hovland chose during the 2017 U.S. Amateur. Once last year he went down the 17th hole, when it played straight downwind. He had just a sand wedge into the green.

“There’s not too much trouble there, I thought,” he said. “Obviously that bunker on the left side [on 17] is no good, but at the same time the bunker down 15 on the right is no good, either.”

During practice rounds, Hovland and caddie Shay Knight lasered the yardages from the left edge, center and right edge of the 17th fairway to get an idea of their approach yardages.

“We were trying to be as stealthy as we could,” Hovland said.

In the opening round, after a well-executed drive, he had 187 yards to the flag. On Friday, Hovland blew it well right of his intended line, into the rough. “It was a bad shot,” he said. But he had only 175 yards to the flag.

“It’s so much shorter,” Knight said.

Hovland wasn’t the only player to go down the adjacent hole, with Thomas Pieters (par) and Aaron Wise (three-putt bogey) also trying it in the first round.