Ludvig Aberg is preparing to play in only his second PGA Championship and will make his sixth career start in a major.
Though he’s finished outside the top 50 in his last two starts, he was nevertheless a critical part of the storyline at the Masters where he held a share of the lead late on the back nine, then finished solo seventh place.
When asked what he learned from a solo second at last year’s Masters, Aberg said, “I learned that I liked it. I really like being in that position. That’s the biggest thing I learned from it. That I want to do it again. I want to be in that situation and have a putt to win big tournaments.”
It’s still hard to believe that the 25-year-old’s major championship career is in its infancy, because he now boasts top-7s in both of his finishes at the Masters, and his quick pace of play shows a confidence in his intuition and the tools he brings to the table.
Golfers are always making tweaks at this level, and presently, Aberg says he’s letting this club face get a little too open.
“I have sort of this tendency in my golf swing where my face gets a little bit too open at times and when it gets open, I can't really turn, technically speaking, that's what happens,” Aberg said Wednesday in his press conference. “So we've been working on getting the face a little bit more shut at address and at impact, which allows me to be a little bit more active in my body. Allows me to be a little bit more athletic, which is nice. I saw some positives last week in Philly with my driver, which was really nice too. That will be a key this week to hit that driver very well if you want to compete. So looking forward to do that and keep improving on that.”
Unlike most of his peers, Aberg has never seen this course in tournament conditions because the one Tour event here that he qualified for, he ended up sitting out due to a knee injury.
Aberg played Quail Hollow last Sunday before the Truist Championship in Philadelphia and said it was mostly helpful to get a sense of the sightline off the tee boxes.
Thankfully, Aberg has veteran caddie Joe Skovron, who has a lot of experience around this course, and he plans to lean on his looper’s expertise around the course and its undulating greens.
“I’ll lean on Joe a bunch. A few years ago, he and Rickie's first tour (win) here (2012); he's seen the golf course a bunch,” Aberg said. “Obviously, it's changed a little bit over the years from what I've heard, but yeah, I'll lean on him no matter what tournament we're playing in. But obviously, a golf course where I haven't been and he's been here a ton, I think I'll lean a little bit more than I usually do.”
Aberg is paired with Jordan Spieth and Patrick Reed this week in one of the Rolex featured groupings, and he’s keen to spend time with those two and hopefully lean on one another’s good momentum.
“I think you want to play with good players. You want to play with guys that you know are going to play well and I think that's the case in my pairing over the next couple days,” Aberg said. “You always want to feed off good golf shots. You want to see putts go in. You want to see good shots being hit. I'm sure we are going to get a lot of that coming up over the next couple days with Jordan and Patrick. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. It will be a cool challenge. Obviously major championship is a little bit more than a regular Tour event, but I do like those challenges.”
They tee off on Thursday afternoon at 1:25pm (8:00am on Friday).
