Sweden’s Ludvig Aberg must like this part of the world. In his first half season on the PGA Tour, he won the RSM Classic hosted by Davis Love III. It is played at the Sea Island Resort. Then last fall, after undergoing surgery to fix a meniscus tear, he bought a house in Ponte Vedra. This week, he’s playing in his second Players.
As a local, he’s been able to play the TPC Sawgrass more than ever before. This week, he has to be a favorite at The Players.
“We moved here in mid-October of last year and it's been great,” he said. “Play the golf course quite a bit. It's been nice. Feels like anytime we had some visitors coming over, my parents or buddies or something like that, we always try to go play it and got a few rounds in and it's been great.”
Aberg was the first to be able to take advantage of the relatively new PGA Tour University program that allows the top college golfer each year to have access to the PGA Tour.
“I was sort of the first guy to be able to take advantage of it, and I'm going to be forever grateful for that,” he said. “It kind of springboarded my career and gave me a really good start.”
Aberg took advantage of the program, too, playing several PGA Tour events in July and August after graduating from Texas Tech. Then he went to Europe where he played in two events, the D&D Real Czach Masters followed by the Omega European Masters, which he won. His results made him a shoe-in for the last Ryder Cup as a captain’s pick.
After the Ryder Cup, Aberg returned to the U.S. where he played fall events. In the last event on the 2023 calendar, the RSM Classic, he posted his first PGA Tour victory. Almost no one wins on two tours that quickly. No one except Aberg.
Last year was his first full season as a PGA Tour player, and this season he’s already been in fine form winning the Genesis Invitational which was played at Torrey Pines instead of Riviera CC due to the fires in California.
In terms of how he feels about TPC Sawgrass, he’s a big fan. He thinks it’s a top five in the world golf course.
“It's a great golf course. I love the back nine. The back nine has got so many good holes. 12, when they move it up, 14's a strong hole, 16, 17, 18's probably the best finish, in my opinion, because you can pretty -- not easy, but you can -- if you hit the shots, you can go 3, 2, 3, but if you don't, you can go 6, 6, 6,” he explained.
“I like that type of golf, and if you want to win this tournament, you have to step up and hit some good golf shots.”
What he’s working on now is his short game and was not happy with his play at Bay Hill in the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
“I would like to be able to get the ball up-and-down a little bit more often. I would like to deal especially with the rough,” he said about last week’s results.
One thing he and his caddie do is get together before every round and discuss what they want to do on every hole on the course.
“We sort of go through the wind for the day and sort of the pins and where to leave it and where not to leave it, and just the strategy of it,” he said. “I like to do that so that every time you step up on a tee box you know exactly what you're going to do and you've had conversations about it, and it kind of takes away all the uncertainty between a caddie and a player.”
He doesn’t get very nervous playing golf. He reserves that for watching “football” which to us is soccer. Liverpool is his favorite team.
“I want them to win. I've always wanted them to win. And, yeah, I'm just into it,” he admitted.
