Viktor Hovland Breaks Jack’s U.S. Open Amateur Record

Viktor Hovland is the best amateur golfer on the planet.

He proved it again on Sunday at the 119th U.S. Open.

All Hovland did was go out and put four front nine birdies on his scorecard.  He then managed to get through the back nine in even par and his closing 67 tied him for low round of the day.

It also got him to four-under par for the championship and earned him a tie for 12th with previous rounds of 69-73-71.

Hovland won low amateur honors by five shots over Stanford’s Brandon Wu, but in the process, he broke a record he didn’t even know about.

The 280 total for 72 holes bested the amateur record for the U.S. Open mark of 282 set by Jack Nicklaus at Cherry Hills in 1960.  “I had no idea,” Hovland said when he was informed of his feat.

“It’s obviously cool to perform such a thing,” Hovland said. “And I hope that this will feed or I can feed off of this going into my professional career and do more things like this and be in contention of winning tournaments.”

The Oklahoma State State product also finished as the low am at the Masters in April, joining Phil Mickelson (1991) and Matt Kuchar (1998) as the only two other players to accomplish that feat since 1990.

Hovland turns pro this week at the Travelers Championship and has received sponsor’s invites to the Rocket Mortgage Classic, 3M Open and the John Deere Classic.

The player he beat, Brandon Wu, finished tied for 35th but missed his Stanford graduation on Sunday.

While Wu missed out on walking across the stage with his fellow graduates, Stanford brought the graduation to him, arranging to have a cap, gown and diploma presented to him after his round Sunday.

“This is a nice backdrop,” said Wu. “Stanford Stadium is pretty cool, but this is also pretty cool.”