It’s an ineffably stressful exercise for any touring professional to thrash his way out of the golfing wilderness. Always harder on the psyche than any of the senses. And always a longer journey than anticipated. Because solid footing leads to quicksand. Dead ends abound. Every apparent clearing turns out to be a mirage. Doubt becomes second nature. Impatience overwhelms reason.

Two of golf’s most talented and accomplished players, Viktor Hovland and Justin Thomas, recently have become all too familiar with the ongoing futility of attempting to reacquire the elements of their respective games, to reclaim, in essence, the excellence that resides within themselves.

For much of the day Sunday at the Valspar Championship, each man displayed enough of his best golf to give himself a chance to win, to pull himself out of the psychological tar pit. But the way things go in tournament golf, only one guy gets away clean. Or at least uplifted.

With five holes to play, Hovland trailed Thomas by three strokes and then started drilling shots and filling up the hole like the player who blitzed the PGA Tour at the end of the 2023 season to win the FedEx Cup title. The Norwegian made three birdies in a four-hole stretch to reel in his American counterpart and emerge with a one-stroke victory.

It certainly helped that Thomas bogeyed two of his last three holes on the Copperhead Course at Innisbrook Resort after looking like the bulletproof birdie machine who had won 15 tour titles, including the 2017 FedEx Cup, but hadn’t broken through since his playoff victory in the 2022 PGA Championship. Before the late stumble, Thomas was seven under par for the day and 16 under since a four-over 40 start on his opening nine holes of the tournament.

He was rolling. And then, all of a sudden, quicksand. Two poor swings with the driver on the 16th and 18th holes, both well left of the fairway, relegated him to a runner-up finish and a search for just a smidgen more refinement. “I have a little hurt from the end there,” Thomas said after a closing five-under 66 that was still very good but not good enough.

If you think it’s hard trying to escape from someone else’s shadow, try escaping from your own.

Beginning the day with a share of the 54-hole lead with Jacob Bridgeman and Nico Echavarria, Hovland wasn’t quite sure he had done that after a closing 67 gave him an 11-under 267 total and his seventh PGA Tour title, his first since the 2023 Tour Championship. In the immediate aftermath, he sounded like a man who had been given a decoder ring and no directions on how to use it.

“I’ve got no idea,” Hovland, 27, said when asked what positives he drew on down the stretch. “It’s still kind of sinking in.”

On the one hand, he said he felt calm as he and Thomas pulled away from a crowded leaderboard. And then on the other hand, having noted earlier in the week how crazy golf can be, Hovland sounded, well, confounded by what had just happened after missing the cut in his previous three starts.

“I hit a lot of disgusting shots, but they happen to go where I look and then my iron game, I can still hit good shots, but I know that there’s some bad ones creeping in there,” he said. “But somehow this week I was just able to hit the good shots that I can a lot more often than I have in the recent weeks, but it’s still the same tendencies and there’s still some of those high rights out there that I need to work on, but it’s unbelievable to see that I could win.

“I honestly did not believe that I could do it this week.”

Viktor Hovland. Brennan Asplen

Brennan Asplen

Now, it should be noted that Hovland opted for his journey to the center of dearth, tinkering with a golf swing that had proven efficient even if it wasn’t the most aesthetically pleasing. He is cursed by being a perfectionist in a game where the pursuit of perfection is a fool’s errand. He went down more rabbit holes than Elmer Fudd could ever count but still got by on talent to qualify for the playoffs last year.

But going into this week’s stop in Palm Harbor, Fla., Hovland was mired in 137th place in the FedEx Cup standings. He had never missed three cuts in a row. He shot 80 in the first round of the Players Championship last week and wasn’t sure he was going to tee it up at Valspar until after the Wednesday pro-am.

How then to explain his execution on the 16th and 17th holes, two of the most difficult on the Copperhead Course, when he gave himself birdie looks of six and 12 feet, respectively, and guided them home? He finished the week second in strokes gained/putting and sixth in approach to green. Those look like familiar Hovland-type stats.

“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,” he said after pocketing $1.566 million and rising from 19th to eighth in the world rankings. “Just goes to show this game is pretty crazy.”

The Masters is starting to appear on the horizon, and Hovland was asked if the game that is reemerging could enable him to claim the green jacket. He wasn’t sure. You can’t be walking blind for months on end and then suddenly see the light.

“If you would have asked me if I was going to win this week with what I had I probably would have said no, but here we are,” said Hovland, who unleashed a wild drive on the 72nd hole that led to a bogey that, fortunately for him, did no damage. “So it’s kind of the same question. I probably shouldn’t doubt myself to that extent. I still need to be honest so I can attack the problems that I have and we can improve, but at the same time I got to give myself some credit, and even no matter how bad it feels or how many poor shots I’m hitting, I’m still capable of shooting good scores with it, so I kind of have to keep that in the back of my head.”

Douglas P. DeFelice

Douglas P. DeFelice

Thomas, 31, has to go about moving good thoughts to the front of his head despite his third runner-up finish in his last nine starts and ninth in his career. There was a bright side to the week, and he didn’t have to look hard to find it after setting a tournament record with his 131 weekend score. “I just felt so good out there, so comfortable and so excited over every shot in this moment,” he said, fighting to not look crestfallen. “Obviously, I made it easier on him. But, yeah, it’s really, really fun, it’s really hard, but it’s really fun trying to win a golf tournament.

“I’ll take a lot of good [from the week]. Way, way more good than bad,” he added. “I’m very proud of myself. It sucks not winning when you’re that close and have a great chance, but I just hopefully put myself in the same position in two weeks at Augusta and finish it off better.”

As Hovland was completing the rudimentary task of signing his scorecard, Thomas entered the scoring trailer and offered congratulations. They exchanged a warm handshake. They both know how hard it is to win. And they know how far they have been from even having a chance to win. They know the journey back to competitiveness, even while traveling different paths.

As he exited the trailer, Thomas shouted back to the winner, “See you at Augusta.”

The first major awaits. The wilderness, at least for now, is behind them.

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