Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald praises Viktor Hovland's return to form at Valhalla

Hovland revealed after his third round in Valhalla that he had briefly contemplated withdrawing from the event the previous week in despair at the state of his game.

Reuniting with former coach Joe Mayo paid instant dividends however, Hovland narrowly missing a birdie putt on the 72nd hole which could have taken him into a play-off for his first major title.

Hovland won three and a half points from his five matches in Europe's Ryder Cup triumph in Rome and Donald said: "It's good to see Viktor playing well again.

"He's a little bit of a perfectionist in golf and he's always searching to get better and went through a couple of teachers that probably weren't the right fit for him.

"I heard he went back and saw Joe earlier in the week and got what he calls good feels and it's good to see him playing well again.

"He's so talented I wasn't too worried about him, it was just a matter of time to find the right kind of feelings in his swing. He's such a great ball striker and one of the best players that's been in the game the last couple of years."

Hovland feared it would take up to two months after starting to work with Mayo again before he saw any progress but his coach had other ideas.

"When I went to see Joe we had dinner and I said, ‘You don't look very concerned', and he had kind of pinpointed a feel that as soon as I kind of kept working on that, it just got better immediately," Hovland said.

"I thought this was potentially going to be a little bit of a project and maybe take six, eight weeks before I would see immediate improvement.

"I was trying to get back to what is the most natural for me to do instead of going down these other rabbit holes, so that's just what we're doing.

"I never doubted my abilities. It was just kind of my machinery was not working very well. But as soon as I get the machine somewhere on track, I can play."