Know Thyself

By Jonathan Massey –

“To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.” 

– Socrates

This is Viktor Hovland, currently the 5th-ranked golfer in the world, according to the Official World Golf Rankings. Unless you follow the game of golf closely, you’ve probably never heard of Viktor—but let me share a little bit of his story with you.

In 2023, Viktor arguably had the best year of his golf career. He played in 23 events, won three times—including The Memorial—and had nine Top-10 finishes. In the four Majors, he finished tied for 7th, tied for 2nd (his best finish in a Major), 19th, and tied for 13th. He made Team Europe for the prestigious Ryder Cup and rose from 10th in the world to 4th in the world rankings. Viktor capped off a record year by winning the FedEx Cup—the PGA Tour version of a season championship. 

After that season, Viktor made the very peculiar decision to fire his swing coach, Joe Mayo. 

How did it go for Viktor? 

To put it kindly: not well. 

He finished tied for 62nd at The Players Championship, where he finished tied for 3rd just the year before. He missed the cut at the 2024 Masters Tournament—after not missing a single cut in 2023. At the Arnold Palmer Invitational, he finished tied for 36th, compared to a tie for 10th in 2023. While he did have a few good performances in 2024, by his standards and expectations, the season was a disappointment. 

That was until Monday, May 13th, 2024, when he decided to reunite with Joe Mayo to figure out his swing. That following weekend, Viktor finished in 3rd place at the PGA Championship—golf’s second Major of the year and the second-best Major finish of his career.  

Will reuniting with Mayo bring Viktor back to being one of the world’s best golfers? We’ll see. But in the short term, it certainly seems so. 

If you’re sitting here reading this and thinking my message is the classic phrase, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, you would be mistaken. 

In fact, curiosity, experimenting, and a willingness to seek out new information are critical to long-term success. The real message here is about the importance of knowing who you are as a player. 

The road to mediocrity is paved with good intentions. I’ve never met a coach who wakes up in the morning with a burning desire to take a young man backwards in his development… yet it happens every day.

Now, I don’t know Viktor personally, so I can’t speak to what happened exactly. But my instincts tell me that: 1) Viktor didn’t know himself well enough, and 2) the coach—or coaches—he hired tried to get him to swing in a certain way that probably sounded good in theory but, in reality, didn’t align with what makes Viktor special. 

This would be akin to having a young man with a really good carrying fastball (a fastball with a high induced vertical break) start throwing sinkers because he doesn’t get many ground balls. Having a good sinker sounds good in theory, but it doesn’t work for everyone.

At the Texas Baseball Ranch®, we often say: “Our job is to eliminate our job.” Meaning—we want you to become your own best pitching coach. When you reach that level, you can take in information from anybody and everybody, and then filter out what is good for you, what isn’t, and what can be tabled for later until you understand it better. 

Now, nobody becomes their best pitching coach overnight. It’s a process. 

One that is worth undertaking.

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Important TBR Updates

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