College Teammates Wolff & Hovland Making Pro Debut at Travelers

With the rise of Instagram, sports prodigies are everywhere. Only a few months ago, videos of Cameron Champ swinging upwards of 130 MPH and generating ball speeds around 190 MPH and carry distances in the mid-300s were seen everywhere.

But, more recently, two other names have garnered even more attention. And, ironically, it’s just the beginning for those two young men.

Oklahoma State teammates Matthew Wolff—who just signed a multi-year deal with TaylorMade—and Viktor Hovland—who just broke Jack Nicklaus’ scoring record for an amateur at U.S. Open—will both be making their pro debuts this week at the Travelers Championship at TPC River Highlands (Cromwell, CT) in two weeks.

Wolff, who’s only 20 years old, is probably the more familiar name simply because of how unique his swing is.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by George Gankas (@georgegankasgolf) on Jun 9, 2019 at 11:12am PDT

Indeed, Wolff is coached by Instagram/YouTube famous coach George Gankas, who is known for taking the more traditional approach to defined, set swing positions and throwing them right in the trash. 

And while Wolff’s swing certainly doesn’t resemble Adam Scott’s, that hasn’t impeded him from succeeding.  To the contrary, Wolff won six times last season, including a 5-shot runaway victory at the NCAA Championship, and, as a result, was named the Haskins Award winner as the top player in men’s college golf earlier this week.

As mentioned earlier, Wolff will be putting into a full bag of TaylorMade clubs, including:

• TaylorMade M6 Driver (8°)
• TaylorMade M6 3-Wood (15°)
• TaylorMade P760 Utility Driving 2 Iron (17°)
• TaylorMade P750 Tour Proto Irons (3 through PW)
• TaylorMade Milled Grind Raw Wedges in 52°, 56° and 62°
• TaylorMade Spider X Copper

But perhaps most noteworthy is the custom putter cover for his Spider X:

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Andrew Tursky (@andrewtursky) on Jun 18, 2019 at 4:52pm PDT

On the other hand, Hovland, who at 21-years old finished T-12 at the 2019 U.S. Open, just announced that he’ll be joining Bubba Watson, Tony Finau and Austin Cook on Team Ping.

Interestingly, after winning the 2018 U.S. Amateur at Pebble Beach, Hovland earned a spot to compete in the 2019 Masters, where he (once again) shot the amateur-low and finished T-32.  While competing at Augusta (very jealous), Hovland was playing TM’s M5 driver and the P750 irons. But just last week at Pebble Beach, Hovland decided to put into play the G410 LST driver and a combo set of the iBlade (4 through 6) and i210 (7 through PW) irons (which were complemented with some Titleist Vokey SM7 wedges and TM’s TP Black Copper Mullen 2 DB SS putter). 

That said, Hovland’s multi-year agreement with Ping requires him to play a minimum of 11 Ping clubs, including their driver and putter, so it’ll be interesting to see if he continues to stay with his Vokeys or, instead, swap in some of Ping’s Glide Forged wedges. 

Needless to say, anyone who watched Hovland play even just a handful of holes knows this kid’s something special:

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by GolfBetterTucson.com (@golfbettertucson) on Aug 28, 2018 at 6:02am PDT

Although the Traveler’s isn’t a major, it’s certainly shaping up to have one of the most interesting fields out there, where Hovland and Wolff will be competing with guys like Daniel Berger, Keegan Bradley, Patrick Cantlay, Cameron Champ, Jason Day, Bryson DeChambeau, Tony Finau, Tommy Fleetwood, Max Homa (A “Must Follow” Twitter Legend), Kevin Kisner, defending, back-to-back PGA Champion Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson, “The Juice” Francesco Molinari, TRUE linkswear co-founder Ryan Moore, Patrick Reed, Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas and Bubba Watson.

And no matter where Hovland and Wolff finish, it’s evident that these two guys have the talent to become familiar faces on the PGA Tour for years to come.

Cover Image Via Instagram