We’ll never see another Tiger – don’t compare me to him!
LUDVIG ABERG’S is golf’s next generational talent and his meteoric rise has echoes of the greatest, but the ice-cool Swede is bemused by all the hype
IT does not take Ludvig Aberg long to list the indulgences he has afforded himself from a rise that is almost unmatched for speed in the recent history of golf. ‘I get asked sometimes if I have splurged on anything,’ he tells Mail Sport. ‘You know, I think the only thing I bought was an iPad Mini. That’s it. I’ve never bought a helicopter.’
And why would he when flying comes so naturally?
To go by Aberg’s assessment, as he prepares for his first major at the Masters this week, the past 10 months since he turned professional have been ‘pretty good’.
That is a monstrous understatement for a breakthrough that so far has seen the Swede win two titles, a Ryder Cup and more than £5million in prize money.
That he will head to Augusta rated as a serious contender says everything about the astonishing progress of a 24-year-old who has already reached No9 in the world and has the look of a generational talent.
The hype has escalated even faster than his ranking. It was only September when Greg Sands, Aberg’s college coach at Texas Tech University, revealed he and his assistant had a private nickname for the prodigy on their books — Ken.
‘As in Barbie and Ken, because this guy can do no wrong,’ Sands said, with our conversation having followed Luke Donald’s decision to hand Aberg a Ryder Cup wildcard, 77 days after his first strokes in the professional game. As Sands put it: ‘With Ludvig, God put together the perfect human being for golf.’
Aberg, described by one of his PGA Tour contemporaries as ‘very Swedish, very cool in nature’, is utterly bemused by the noise.
‘I didn’t know anything about the Ken stuff until after I got out of school,’ he says. ‘That is just so excessive and over the top.
‘But with the expectations, I know they are there and it’s fine — I’m always going to have higher expectations on myself.
‘You look at the last few months, I’ve always felt like I have the potential to be playing in a Ryder Cup team and to win on the PGA Tour, but within this timeframe, it’s probably been a little bit quicker than I thought. I think one of the key things for me is the people around me keep me grounded. My friends, girlfriend and family speak to me the same way if I shoot 65 or 85.’
To date, there has been no sign of Aberg becoming flustered by his circumstances. Nor of him carding an 85. If there have been moments when he has felt starstruck in gilded company, they have been minor — he describes sharing a Ryder Cup team room with Rory McIlroy as ‘surreal’.
Likewise, he caught himself staring at Tiger Woods when they played the Genesis Invitational in February. He decided against striking up a chat.
‘He was playing in the group in front of me,’ Aberg says. ‘I saw him, but I’m not sure he saw me. He was a hero for me, probably like everyone.
‘What he did for the game of golf, not only his dominance but the way he approached certain things, is probably something we’re never going to see again.’
It is inevitable, not to mention extremely premature, that Aberg’s performances have raised comparisons to Woods. Indeed, it was widely noted when Aberg reached No 11 in the world rankings in February, after only 18 PGA Tour starts, that only one man had ever hit those heights quicker — Woods did it in 17. Aberg squarely rejects any such bracketing. ‘I wouldn’t even try to put myself in the same sentence as him,’ he says. ‘Like I said, I don’t think we will ever see another Tiger Woods.’
That is a reasonable position to adopt, but the intrigue in Aberg is valid as he contests his first major.
The furnace of the Ryder Cup, where he contributed two points for Europe, failed to expose any psychological cavities or shortcomings in a technical game built on huge, accurate driving, but individual strokeplay at Augusta is a different kind of test.
The fascination will come in how he handles a track where experience of those iced glass greens and sloping fairways is worth its weight in jackets.
Having visited for a couple of days after placing eighth at the Players Championship in March, Aberg is confident.
‘I didn’t play with a scorecard, but the thing that stood out to me was I basically hit driver on every single hole that wasn’t a par three, which I think is a great thing for me. It’s one of my strengths. It wasn’t really up to tournament speed on the greens, but visually the course felt really good for me.
‘I actually went there in my freshman year of college (when he was 19). We took a team trip to the golf course and we got to play a round right before Covid hit.’
How did he get on? ‘Three under par — coolest thing ever.’
Time will tell how he goes in the heat of competition, though that has been said repeatedly since he swapped being the world’s No1 amateur for the paid ranks at the Canadian Open in June. It was not lost on Aberg that something else happened that week.
‘I remember because all the announcements about a merger (between the PGA Tour and the Saudi backers of LIV) were on my first day as a professional golfer,’ he says. ‘Honestly, since then I have tried not to pay that much attention to all that.’
That has extended to twice rejecting offers from LIV, including one in his amateur days that is understood to have been close to eight figures.
Asked if he might have any interest in that direction in the future, his answer is brief. ‘No.’
By now, the PGA Tour will realise how fortunate they are for that.
My friends, girlfriend and family speak to me the same way if I shoot 65 or 85