Comment by pjc50

The original statement is correct: the rocket cannot throttle down to a small fraction, to an equivalent thrust to the mass of the rocket. SpaceX rockets indeed do not "hover" for any significant length of time. The trajectory is planned to achieve 0 velocity at just above ground level. The feedback control comes in because it's impossible to know the exact performance and atmospheric characteristics, so if you tried to do it by dead reckoning it would be off vertically by tens of meters, so the trajectory is continuously adjusted.