Viktor Hovland Wins the Valspar Championship With a Snake Pit Rally Past Justin Thomas

Viktor Hovland showed up at Innisbrook not sure he should be there at all. He left with the trophy, a seventh PGA TOUR title and the strange new problem of explaining how a swing he still does not trust just beat Justin Thomas down the stretch.

Hovland closed with a 4-under 67 on the Copperhead Course to win the Valspar Championship at 11-under 273, one shot ahead of Thomas, who shot 66 and bogeyed two of his last three holes. Jacob Bridgeman, part of the three-way 54-hole lead, shot 69 to finish alone in third at 9 under. Bud Cauley (66), Billy Horschel (67) and Ryo Hisatsune (68) tied for fourth at 8 under.

The win is Hovland's first since he took the BMW Championship and the TOUR Championship back to back in 2023, and it was worth $1,566,000 and 500 FedExCup points.

Thomas Takes Control

For most of the back nine this looked like Thomas's afternoon. The two-time major champion made four birdies in a five-hole stretch, walked off the 15th green at 7 under for the round and held a three-shot lead. Hovland, at that moment, was standing on the 14th tee with five holes to play and a lot of ground to cover.

"I felt so good out there, so excited for every shot," Thomas said, per CBS Sports.

Then the Snake Pit happened. At the 16th, the toughest hole on the course, Thomas hit driver into the trees, chipped out and scrambled out of a bunker just to save bogey. At the 18th, another drive found the deep rough left, and that led to a second bogey. A round that had been heading toward something special settled at 66.

The Rally

Hovland's comeback started with a decision, not a swing. On Saturday he had gone for the par-5 14th in two and made bogey. On Sunday he laid up and rolled in a 12-foot birdie putt.

The shot of the tournament came at 16. Hovland hit 3-iron off the tee, then a 7-iron from around 186 yards over a bunker to about 5 feet. The birdie pulled him into a tie for the lead. At the par-3 17th, a 5-iron settled 12 feet away and that putt dropped too, flipping the tournament into a two-shot cushion as Thomas stumbled.

"That's probably the one shot for the week that he needed to hit at the time to win the golf tournament, and he did," caddie Shay Knight said of the 7-iron at 16, per the PGA TOUR.

With two in hand at the last, Hovland missed the fairway right, played away from trouble, chipped to about 11 feet and two-putted for a bogey that only set the final margin.

From Missed Cuts to a Trophy

The backstory is what makes this one land. Since winning the 2023 FedExCup, Hovland had gone through five coaches, according to the AP, and arrived at Innisbrook off three straight missed cuts. He had gone eight months without making a 36-hole cut in a full-field event. The week before the Valspar, he went back to former coach Grant Waite, who joined him on site for work Tuesday and Wednesday.

"I was not very hopeful with my game leading into this week," Hovland said. "Wasn't sure I was going to show up, but I'm glad I did."

Asked what had changed, Hovland laughed. "I've got no idea," he said. He was a little more specific later, and more honest than most winners. "I hit a lot of disgusting shots, but they happened to go where I looked," he said.

Knight framed it simply. "He's a confidence player. When he has that confidence, he can beat anybody, and that's what he's done this week," the caddie said.

The Ones Who Came Close

Thomas will be the one replaying this flight home. He has not won since the 2022 PGA Championship, and he had his hands on this one. "I've had plenty of chances this season, but nothing quite like that," Thomas said.

Bridgeman's first time sleeping on a 54-hole lead ended with a solid 69 and a solo third. He needed to hole out from the fairway at 18 to force a playoff, made par instead and walked off with a result that confirms his Cognizant Classic runner-up was no fluke.

Horschel provided the highlight of the chase, hitting a left-handed 9-iron from beside a tree at the par-5 fifth that traveled 117 yards onto the green, then holing a putt from just outside 30 feet for birdie. Davis Riley finished seventh at 7 under. Shane Lowry, Corey Conners, Lucas Glover and Seamus Power tied for eighth at 6 under. Ricky Castillo and Xander Schauffele finished in a tie for 12th, and Nico Echavarria, the third member of Saturday's co-lead, faded with a 74 to tie for 16th.

What It Means

This was not a fixed Hovland. By his own admission, there were too many loose swings and too much that still feels wrong on the way down. It was a Hovland who found enough, in a week when his best shots came exactly when he needed them, to beat a player who had a three-shot lead with three to play. The AP noted the win moves him back into the world's top 10.

With the Masters on the horizon, a player who was not sure he would even tee it up in Palm Harbor is suddenly having a very different conversation.

Revisit the week in our Round 1 recap, Round 2 recap and Round 3 recap. Final scoring is on the official PGA TOUR leaderboard (opens in a new tab), and the TOUR has more on how Hovland closed it out (opens in a new tab).

Sources: PGA TOUR (final-round coverage and leaderboard), AP, CBS Sports, Sky Sports, The Golf News Net. More golf coverage on Undrafted.

Photo: PGA TOUR.