This week at Today’s Lines our Golfing Legends Series profiles the “new kid on the block”, Ludvig Aberg, with insights from top sportsbooks on his rapid rise and future potential.
How It All Began for Aberg?
Ludvig Aberg was born just before the millennium in Sweden and was introduced to golf at the age of eight by his father, Johan. Remarkably, Aberg initially preferred football until at thirteen, he focused on golf when he attended the Filbornaskolan, a sports-based boarding school. During those formative years in golf, he was joined in his year group by LPGA stars Linn Grant and Maja Stark.
Glittering Amateur Career
Aberg’s glittering amateur career along with his education at Texas Tech University delayed him turning professional. When you consider he won the two Swedish Professional Tour events as an amateur in July 2020, it surprised many that he waited a further three years until he was twenty-three years old before turning professional.
Aberg’s amateur career was prolific as he swept all before him at the Collegiate level winning all their big events and yearly awards, plus other junior or amateur events around the globe listed below.
- 2017 European Team Championship (individual winner)
- 2017 Fairhaven Trophy
- 2019 Sun Bowl all-American Classic
- 2021 Jones Cup Invitational
Not rushing to turn professional may have been the making of Aberg, allowing him to mature that little bit more rather than rushing into the sport at the highest level.
It is rumored that he turned down a $2,500,000 offer from the newly formed LIV Golf League in 2022 to finish his final year at Texas Tech while also making sure he became the world-ranked #1 amateur in September of that year.
World Ranked #4 in Just Over a Year
Amazing to think that Aberg is ranked inside the top 5 after only a year as a professional. The rapid promotion to the top of the sport is the quickest since Collin Morikawa and as close as any player has been to tracking Tiger Woods’s career, whose amateur dominance funnily enough mirrored the young Swede’s.
Ryder Cup Debut Three Months After Turning Pro
His first professional tournament was the Canadian Open in June 2023 and remarkably by September, he was a captain’s pick for Team Europe in the Ryder Cup. Something never seen before and a little controversial at the time for captain Luke Donald.
Aberg won one of the DP World Tour’s bigger events, the Omega Masters in the picturesque Swiss Alps, the weekend before Donald announced his picks. We will never know if that moved the needle in Aberg’s favour, but many think the Englishman had made his mind up on Aberg’s burgeoning reputation from the amateur game because that win was only Aberg’s ninth professional tournament.
Regardless, Donald was quickly vindicated by Aberg putting in a very strong shift as a rookie for Team Europe.
Aberg’s First PGA Tour Win
The talented Swedes’ first PGA Tour title was the RSM Classic in the fall of 2023, his eleventh start in the big league as a professional.
It’s his consistency that has been remarkable since turning pro, taking to it like a duck to water with ten top 10s in the year with a best finish in 2024 of runner-up at the Masters.
What Does the Future Hold for Ludvig Aberg?
If there is a modern player that can get closest to matching the career of Tiger Woods, it is Ludvig Aberg.
They are lofty claims indeed, but the ease with which he does things makes one believe he is bound for the very top of the sport.
His tall physic produces one of the most effortless repeatable swings the game has ever seen, and he also seems to be able to play all different types of courses.
His debut effort at the TPC Sawgrass in the Players Championship when 8th was eye-catching, given that track has always been suited to players with course experience who can formulate a strong strategic approach.
Another couple of years at this trajectory and pundits will rightly start talking about the young Swede as the first generational talent since Jordan Spieth.
If Ludvig Aberg stays injury free and unfazed by the pressure, the expectation of top-level sport, and his life under the microscope, he looks well on course for this sort of status in the sport.
