AUGUSTA, GEORGIA | When will it end, this dizzying ascent that Ludvig Åberg is making? The 6-foot-3-inch Swede has risen faster than an express elevator. Ranked 1,964th in the world in January 2023 and 32nd in December, he was ninth at the start of Masters week and moved up to seventh when the Official World Golf Ranking updated today.
For a time Sunday in his first major championship, he threatened to take the lead in the 88th Masters before finishing runner-up, four strokes behind Scottie Scheffler. A fast rise? He seems to have been jet-propelled.
Åberg, 24, is the name on everyone’s lips.
“A future world No. 1,” Shane Lowry, the 2019 Open champion, said. “He is the most impressive golfer I have seen since Rory McIlroy.”
Luke Donald, captain of the winning Europe Ryder Cup team in Rome last September of which Åberg was a member, described him as “a generational talent.”
“He can absolutely become world No. 1,” Tommy Fleetwood said. “He is not far off it already, and he has plenty of time left. Yes, he definitely can. A good way of putting it is that he seems to have everything. Plus, he has good looks on top of it. Very annoying.”
“He’s a future world No. 1, for sure,” Sahith Theegala said after being paired with Åberg in the first two rounds at Augusta National. “I’ve played with him six or seven times, and he has such soft hands around the greens. He practically never misses from inside 10 feet. He didn’t even play that well today, and what did he shoot? A 69? Huh!”
“Everyone in my position, they are going to want to be major champions, to be the world No. 1. It’s the same for me.”
Ludvig Åberg
Åberg’s 3-under score Friday was the lowest round of a very windy day – so difficult that eight of the world’s best golfers shot 80 or higher. Asked what aspect of Åberg’s game that he most coveted, Theegala replied: “His driving.” Why? For length or accuracy? “Both.”
It seems then that Åberg can do little wrong. He is even being talked of as the face of golf. Frenchman Thomas Levet, himself a former Ryder Cup player, says this about Åberg’s technique: “Technically he is very sound, and his swing is easy to repeat. There is no strange things happening in his swing technique. He has all the weapons in the world. He is better technically than Scottie, so at some stage he is going to overtake Scottie.”
Such praise for Åberg from so many quarters could in itself be a danger as could an injury, a desire to change aspects of his swing, a feeling that he knows it all, an inability to cope with the flattery. Many promising players have fallen prey to one or many of these faults. Were Åberg to become too big for his boots, as the British say, then his fall could be fast, if not as fast as his rise.
But he seems so well-balanced, so calm in personality and playing style. Asked last Friday whether he thought he deserved to have come so far so fast, he replied: “I don’t think anyone deserves anything in golf. All I try to do is hit the golf shots as good as I can and take it from there.” On Saturday, he was asked how he kept himself from letting it all go to his head, whether he tries to ignore all the plaudits. “No,” he replied. “I think about it [them] all the time. I don’t think you should try and push it away. I try to embrace it and I try to be OK with all that comes with it, I guess.”
He has some natural gifts. He is Swedish, which is another way of saying he is calm and rarely looks flustered. He gets this from his mother, Mia. [“Mama Mia, Mama Mia, The Name of the Game,” the album by Abba. Get it?] He makes not just the hitting of a golf ball look easy but all the other stuff that goes with his current eminence in professional golf. He seems very comfortable in his own skin, untroubled by stress. And far more relaxed over the ball than, say, Brian Harman or Tyrrell Hatton.
“Golf does stress me out,” Åberg said. “When I get stressed, I get a little bit quick. It happens in my golf swing. It happens in the way I walk, the way I talk. I try to manage it the best I can. I am pretty good at managing it, I guess.”
He interviews well, looking questioners in the eye and speaking English in a soft voice with little to reveal that it is not his first language. He is purposeful and powerful. He is quick to the ball and quick over it, taking only a half swing once he has decided the shot that he wants to play.
Having hit his drive into the trees on the left of the eighth hole on Saturday, he arrived at his ball with a smile on his face and a sandwich in his left hand. “Anyone been hurt?” he asked. Having been assured no one had been injured, he turned to his caddie, Joe Skovron, for a quick consultation before they settled on a “turning-over 5-iron.” Then, Åberg struck a screamer out of the trees that never rose more than 50 feet, and he was off.
Some of his success is due to having the wise Peter Hanson, the Swedish Ryder Cup player, as a mentor and guide for the past few years.
“It’s one thing to play good, but you need to know what to expect and what will happen around you,” Levet said. “If your coach has never played on tour, doesn’t know the course, how can he give you weeks in advance what you have to do? The modern way is to have past players as advisers. That’s what Peter does for him.”
This is a role Levet once played with Victor Dubuisson and now performs for Matthieu Pavon, another countryman.
“The best kids ask questions,” Levet said. “They have stuff that is in the back of their mind, but suddenly they need an answer. That answer comes from older players. The difference between two guys is sometimes not talent. It is organisation. Some guys can’t do it. Look at [Victor] Dubuisson, for example. He couldn’t answer a question. Ludvig can and does.”
When his first major championship had finished, Åberg went through the ritual of answering more questions, a task he handled with as much ease as he hits 320-yard drives.
“Everyone in my position, they are going to want to be major champions, to be the world No. 1,” he said. “It’s the same for me. It has been that way ever since I picked up a golf club, and that hasn’t changed. This being my first major championship, you never really know what it’s going to be like until you’re there and you experience it. I think this week has given me a lot of experience and a lot of lessons learned in terms of those things. It makes me really hungry, and it makes me want to do it again and again.”
Those of us who watched him last week liked what we saw of him and want him to do it again. We look forward to seeing him at the PGA Championship next month. Someone thought he could be the new face of golf. If he is, he’s a very welcome face.
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