Q. How important was it for you to bounce back today with a couple early birdies out of the gate?
VIKTOR HOVLAND: Yeah, that was certainly a nice way to start the day. It was a frustrating day yesterday, just hitting a lot of bad shots and not really finding any momentum. I felt like today was a better day, but still got some work to do. I drove it a lot better today, but my irons were still not up to par.
Q. That was the key today to playing a little better, just driving it better?
VIKTOR HOVLAND: Yeah, just finding a few more fairways. It was a little easier getting closer to the pin. Yesterday I was just hitting my irons bad and my driver bad. Out here you just can't really do a whole lot from there. It was a little bit better today, but I need to hit the range.
Q. What do you need to do on the weekend just to improve your position on the leaderboard and make it back to the TOUR Championship for a third straight year?
VIKTOR HOVLAND: Yeah, just kind of simple but good golf. Hopefully I can just start hitting it good again and I can give myself a lot of looks. I'll be playing three, four good holes in a row and then a couple bad swings and then I feel like I'm out of it, and then it's just a little too inconsistent. As soon as I can kind of get it back into that rhythm and I start making some putts, you never know, I could climb back.
Q. I understand you were recently playing some golf way, way, way north of here, Lofoten Links. What can you tell us about that place?
VIKTOR HOVLAND: Yeah, it was amazing. I had never been further north in Norway than Trondheim, which is about a six-hour car ride from Oslo where I'm from, and we drove 22 hours straight up north. It's amazing how they can build a golf course in such a remote area and still have the golf course be really good I thought. It was in great condition, and we didn't have the best of weather, but just to have a golf course there in the middle of nowhere, it's pretty special.
Q. What were your two scores for the rounds you played up there?
VIKTOR HOVLAND: So I still hadn't got my golf clubs from the Open, so I used my buddy's clubs, and the first day it was blowing 35, and the fairways are pretty narrow, so as soon as you miss the fairways it's just a re-tee. So I think I shot 83, and then the next day we had some quiet, just perfect conditions, and I shot I think it was a 63.
Q. How would you describe golf in Norway for somebody that's never been there?
VIKTOR HOVLAND: Like just generally the golf courses and stuff? We have a pretty short season. A lot of the golf courses are -- almost every golf course is public. It's really easy to go out there and just hit a few balls or go out there and play nine or 18 holes. It's very accessible.
But I wouldn't say the golf courses are the best. We have beautiful nature, but a lot of the golf courses are really short and narrow, so there's a lot of irons off the tee and wedges into the greens, or you can hit driver over trees and try to go for the greens. It's interesting that way, but we don't have a whole lot of championship golf courses. But it's still fun to go up there and play.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports