Swedish ‘stud’ Ludvig Åberg unfazed by extraordinary rise to Ryder Cup
TThe stud arrived at the press tent at 4.30pm, led by a stampede of sweaty and disheveled sports journalists, and followed seconds later by a camera crew, chasing him for the Netflix documentary Full Swing. Square-jawed, square-shouldered, straight-backed, slim and well over six feet tall, he sat down at the top table, blinked his pale gray eyes from under the brim of his cap, and flashed a bright white smile across the room. It was, he explained, “cool” to be here, “really cool.” There was a crash at the rear. Maybe someone had fainted.
Most of the players here draw crowds because of what they did in the Majors. Ludvig Åberg does that because of what he doesn’t have. He’s 23, has been studying for four months and hasn’t even started a major yet. It is an extraordinary story. But then, they say, he is an extraordinary player. Åberg is only the second in history, after Jon Rahm, to win two Ben Hogan awards for the best college player in the US. Europe captain Luke Donald has repeatedly described him as “a generational talent”. His decision to pick him as a rookie should be a risk, but no one in the game believes that is the case.
“Ludvig came on my radar in Dubai at the beginning of this year. He was paired with Edoardo Molinari, one of my vice-captains, and Edoardo said, ‘we have to keep an eye on this guy,'” Donald explained. “When you play with certain players, you notice that. They have a certain talent: you see them hitting golf balls and you are blown away just by the different shots, the sound, the course. How he can drive a golf ball is very, very impressive.” Donald played with him in Detroit later that year, and Åberg was nine under through sixteen, “which was pretty impressive knowing I was watching him”.
It was still a gamble, Donald thought. “But every week he got better and better. He had a chance to win the John Deere, then he came to Europe, with a few weeks to go, and had a very strong finish at the Czech Masters, and then of course won at the European Masters in Crans. Then he was two shots ahead after three rounds in our biggest event in Europe at Wentworth. Whenever he was asked to play well under scrutiny, he seemed to perform at a very high level. Suddenly, Donald’s decision was easy.
Åberg carries himself with the easy assurance of a young man who can hit the ball 300 yards straight down the middle, and who has yet to fail in anything worth losing sleep over. When asked when he started believing he could make the team, he replied, “Well, it wasn’t when I was in school” and it wasn’t until he started laughing that everyone realized he didn’t mean it. It was Justin Rose who called him “a stud,” golfer’s jargon for any young player in college golf, but for Åberg the nickname stuck.
“I mean, it’s definitely very flattering,” Åberg said when pressed. “To be honest,” he said in a comical tone, “I haven’t thought about it much since we last spoke.” Åberg was then asked to rank himself somewhere among the Swedish celebrities, “Abba, Henrik Stenson, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Björn Borg…” the journalist suggested. Åberg smiled and said he would not put himself in the same sentence as Abba. He didn’t mention the rest. “All I try to do is play golf and I try to take as few shots as possible in every tournament I play in.”
He is, say those who know him, completely unfazed by everything – the fuss, the attention, the questions, the expectations. He said the locker room for the European team, which includes five major champions, was quite similar to the locker rooms he had played in on the college circuit, only “the level of golf is a little bit better.” Challenged to name one thing that confused him, he couldn’t think of anything at all. He is so de-stressed that he has given up meditation because it became too boring for him. “I’m a pretty quiet boy. I don’t get too high.”
This is by far the biggest week of his life. His plan is to enjoy himself and let golf take care of itself. “I feel like if you dwell too much on the past, it will affect you. If you get stuck too much in the future, this will also affect you. It’s about staying in the moment.” I mean, he’s 23 and the world is his oyster. Why wouldn’t he?