Ludwig Aberg has a knack for making the game look easy. like, really easy. A big part of that is his swing, which has more firepower than an F1 car with more pace than Yo-Yo Ma. But it’s also his demeanor: never too high, never too low. “He’s so calm, like, ridiculously calm,” Rory McIlroy said Sunday as Aberg, the 54-hole leader in the Players Championship, was plotting his way around the stadium green.
Aberg’s softness, McIlroy added, is “a really good thing, especially in settings like the Ryder Cup.” These pressure cooker settings include the main and, yes, Players Championshipwhere Pete Dye’s masterpiece can have the same effect on the world’s most skilled players that a meat grinder does on a three-day-old ribeye. “It’s all about execution,” Aberg said Saturday night of the various challenges of the stadium course. “You’ll be penalized if you don’t, which is a fun way to play golf.”
For three and a half rounds, Aberg did just that: he executed. A bogey-free 69 on Thursday. a bird with sixtwo-Eagle 63 on Friday to take the lead by two. A 71 what bothers me on Saturday to extend his lead to three. Another one-under round on Sunday would probably be enough to secure Aberg, who is 26, his third and biggest Tour victory.
Whatever the golf gods were cooking up for The Players Sunday, Aberg would at least be thinking about what winning on such a grand stage might look and feel like, just as he did in his college days at Texas Tech and in his early pro days. “We spend so much time practicing, playing, training, preparing, so why not think about what it really means to win?” Aberg said Saturday evening. “So, of course, that’s what I’m going to do tonight. But does anything change for me tomorrow? I don’t think so.”
Through Aberg’s first nine holes on Sunday, there was little reason to doubt he wouldn’t keep going. The only real blow came on the par-4 3rd, where he holed a 7-wood off the tee to the left rough and made 5, returning a shot he had taken on the par-5 2nd. Still, after closing the front with five straights and making another at the 10th, Aberg was still in pole position.
Then came the par-5 11th.
After creating cocoons with his drive, Aberg didn’t have to think long about whether to attack a green protected by sand and water. Out came the 7-wood, and with it, something you don’t often see from Aberg: a momentary loss of pace. Aberg’s ball never stood a chance. It started right and stayed right. splash. He escaped with a bogey, but swinging loose from the fairway may have done more damage to his psyche than the scorecard.
That became clear on the next tee when Aberg holed another bogey: a hard pull into the water following the left of the par-4 12th. The mistake left Aberg, after a drop, 181 yards short of the rough, from where he failed to hold the green. A chip and two shots later, he had made a double – and, with Cameron Young and Matt Fitzpatrick the main points ahead of him, effectively played his way out of the competition. For a player who, for 64 holes, had displayed such mastery over his ball, it was a shocking turn of events.
Aberg’s diagnosis?
“I would imagine if you looked at those swings on 11, 12, they were probably quick swings,” he said after signing for a four-over 76 that dropped him to nine under and a tie for fifth. “The takeaway got really quick and then the rest of it kind of spiraled from there. That’s something I should have been aware of, now looking back. But yeah, that’s the way it goes.”
Aberg also admitted to putting pressure on 12, where, for a player of his height, he might have taken less of the club off the tee. Was the club’s aggressive selection, then, an overcorrection for the 11 gaffe?
“I wouldn’t say so,” he said. “In my opinion, it was probably just a very quick swing. I got too quick on it, and all of a sudden it was a bad blemish on my golf game. It ties into all of that. That’s my lesson from those two holes.”
We also learned something else about Aberg this week: For all his even temper and seeming incompatibility, he’s not impervious to nerves. Far from it. He is still young. Still maturing. Still summoning all the elements needed to win at the highest level of the game. He showed as much on Sunday with two out-of-character swings, and he warned as much Saturday night.
“Whenever I’m in a stressful situation, I have to slow myself down,” he said. “Because I get really fast, I start talking fast, I start breathing fast, and I kind of work a little bit like that. So I have to really calm down, try to walk slowly, talk slowly, do everything a little bit slower, which is a challenge.”
At some moments more than others.
;)
