Arnold Palmer Cup Trio Set to Tee It Up at The Players Championship

Brayden Conover

Ron Balicki Scholarship Intern

The stars of tomorrow are making waves today.

Arnold Palmer Cup alums Viktor Hovland, Collin Morikawa, and Matthew Wolff are set to play the first two rounds of The Players Championship Thursday and Friday.

All three making their Players Championship debut, the trio has been on an absolute tear on the PGA TOUR since their 2018 Arnold Palmer Cup.

Hovland made two APC appearances, a member of the last European Team in 2017 and a member of the inaugural International Team in 2018. Many firsts have been attributed to Hovland becoming the first Norwegian player to win the U.S. Amateur (2018) earning him invitations to the 2019 Masters, The Open Championship, and U.S. Open. His T-32 (-3) finish at The Masters gave him a one stroke edge over fellow 2018 International Teammate Alvaro Ortiz to earn the Silver Cup as the low amateur. In the U.S. Open, Hovland once again earned low amateur honors with a T-12 (-4) finish. The 280 total beat Jack Nicklaus’ low-am record of 282 that stood since 1960. Hovland also became the first player to earn both The Masters and U.S. low-am honors since fellow APC alum, Matt Kuchar (1997-98).

Turning pro following the U.S. Open, Hovland secured his TOUR card after finishing seventh in the Korn Ferry Tour finals. It did not take long for ‘Twitter-less Viktor’ to make noise on the TOUR with his first career win coming at the Puerto Rico Open on Feb. 23 with a total of 268 (-20) to win by a stroke.

Making two appearances for Team USA in the APC (2017-18), Morikawa turned pro at the 2019 RBC Canadian Open where he posted a T-14 finish in his TOUR debut. Morikawa picked up his first TOUR win just eight weeks later at the Barracuda Championship, a stableford event, by three points. Morikawa is coming off a T-9 at last week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill.

Wolff, a 2018 Team USA member has made TOUR fans gawk and mimic his unorthodox swing. A collegiate teammate of Hovland at Oklahoma State, Wolff turned pro in June of 2019 at the Travelers Championship and wasted little time winning his first TOUR event just two weeks later at the 3M Open.

Wolff posted a photo of Morikawa and himself on Instagram in anticipation of their Thursday and Friday grouping to promote that the duo will be teaming up together at the Zurich Classic April 23-26.

The group is set to tee off at 1:18 p.m. EST on Thursday and 8:13 a.m. EST on Friday.

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