Hovland and Åberg show opposites attract like a Scandinavian buddy movie | Andy Bull

TOn Friday there were some strange sights around Marco Simone, the strangest of them all, the 50-piece marching band of the Guardia di Finanza who came stomping across the course around noon. Up, down and around the fairways they went, blasting out Antonio D’Elias Armi and Brio while the afternoon sun reflected round on their brass buttons and epaulettes. They were led by a guy who, judging by the look in his eyes and the polished silver sword at his side, wasn’t going to take no for an answer, even if Tommy Fleetwood was on the 15th for a birdie putt. You don’t get that on the back nine in Muirfield.

It looked like they had gone a little too early with the triumphs, but then Fleetwood made the putt and Europe was three holes away from a 4-0 sweep of the morning foursome. So maybe they timed it right after all. By the time the band turned around and headed back to the barracks, there was more blues on the scoreboards here than in the bars on Beale Street.

It all started when Viktor Hovland reached the first green. He came second in the morning and played with the rookie Ludvig Åberg against the American duo Brian Harman, Open champion, and Max Homa. Åberg only turned pro three months ago and hasn’t even played in a major yet; this was by far the greatest event he has experienced. They were an odd couple, the Norwegian and the Swede, like something out of a Scandinavian buddy movie. Tall, blond and slender, Åberg is so tall that he has to stoop to walk through doors; Hovland, strong, stocky and dark brown, is so wide he may have to turn sideways.

“Some people might be a little less talkative, or maybe a little more laid back, or they might not talk as much, so the other person might fill that role,” Hovland said emphatically when asked about his approach to foursome play before the game starts. “But we are both teammates and we try to create a bond where one guy can trust the other and vice versa.”

Like Åberg, a man who never uses three words, even though you would. Which will usually be the case. Especially when it’s ‘cool’. His first three months as a professional golfer had been ‘cool’, making the Ryder Cup team ‘really cool’, winning the PGA Tour youth tour program was ‘pretty cool’ and getting to know Swedish pro Peter Hanson ‘really cool’. . Everything about Åberg is. His resting pulse should be at least a dozen under par. Hovland, on the other hand, is a death-metal fanatic who is way off track – (Åberg’s assessment of his partner’s taste in music: “Not cool”).

It was Hovland who found the right atmosphere for the opening moments. He came onto the first tee bowling as if he intended to tear the American pair apart like pins – eyes wide open, biceps bulging – and hit his opening shot 300 yards down the middle. Åberg, who had the waxy pallor of a man who had not had as much sleep as he needed, hit their second 15 yards to the right of the flag, on the edge of the green, while Harman left Homa with a 30-foot ball. well. It felt like they had the advantage until Hovland fluttered a small chip around the swirls of the green to clinch the first birdie of the week.

The crowd around erupted at that, Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton standing at the front cheering on the second tee; back on the 1st, as did Shane Lowry and Sepp Straka, as Hovland shouted and pumped his fist at the gallery. He hadn’t won a single match when he made his Ryder Cup debut at Whistling Straits, but at the time he was a whippersnapper and ranked 14th in the world; Today he is ranked fourth, winner of the Tour Championship and one of the seniors on the team. He played like that too. He was exceptional in that front nine and helped the team to a lead that they held all day.

It was good enough to carry Åberg, who, understandably, was a little wobbly in one or two places at first. Hovland won them the 2nd with a 15-foot par putt, and nearly halved the 3rd with an 80-foot chip after Hovland left it at the front left of the green. On the 4th the Swede started to heat up, scoring almost half himself. The American pair had come right back at them by then and the match was all square again until Homa made a mess of the 5th with a chip that shot off the back of the green.

When Åberg made a 12-foot putt for birdie on the 6th, and then another 16-foot putt on the 9th, Europe was up by three and Homa and Harman were all out of contention. They won 4&3 and if you listened carefully you could hear the fanfare warming up as they came off the 15th green.