Ludvig Aberg called his shot.
Or shots.
Ahead of this week’s Players Championship, the budding superstar talked of the event’s host course, TPC Sawgrass, and how its beauty lies in its give-and-take ability. Good shots are rewarded. Bad ones aren’t.
Especially on Sawgrass’ second half.
“It’s a great golf course. I love the back nine,” said Aberg, who’s played the course often recently, after moving into a home nearby. “The back nine has got so many good holes. Twelve, when they move it up, 14’s a strong hole, 16, 17, 18’s probably the best finish, in my opinion, because you can pretty — not easy, but you can — if you hit the shots, you can go 3, 2, 3.
“But if you don’t, you can go 6, 6, 6.”
Or you can go 7-3-4 and miss the weekend by three shots.
The seven, on the 545-yard, par-5 16th, was stunning. Coming to the hole, Aberg had made a small move following a double bogey on the 10th, making birdies on 11 and 12, and he was at even-par for the tournament, with the cutline looking to be one-under. A closing birdie would likely put him into the weekend. Shot one, though, found the right rough — and that surface likely helped cause the result of shot two.
With thick rough beneath him, Aberg skulled an iron about 40 yards. He stared it down, befuddled. On his follow-through, he let go of his iron with his right hand.
“Oh no,” announcer Jonathan Coachman told PGA Tour Live viewers. “He just shanked that.”
Shot three was advanced about 130 yards and into the left rough. From about 75 yards away, Aberg could still escape with a par five with an up-and-down.
But if you go back a few paragraphs, you know what happened. Aberg’s wedge went long toward the back pin. His ball bounced past it, then bounced onto the fringe, then bounced into the water behind the green. Had Aberg tried to nestle one in close in hopes of making a par? That’s very likely. But he got too aggressive.
“Oh no,” Coachman said again.
From there, he dropped, hit onto the green and one-putted for the double. On the par-3 17th, he parred. On the par-4 18th, he parred. And he finished with a three-over 75 and a two-over total for 36 holes, three over the cutline.
Notably, Aberg was a bit prophetic about his shank and water ball, too.
In his pre-Players press conference, Aberg talked about what had been lately troubling him in his game.
“I would like to deal especially with the rough — I felt like from the fairway it was fine [last week],” Aberg said, “but judging the lies off the rough last week was tricky when it was first it was wet and then it got dry and then the changing in conditions.
“So I would like to get that a little bit better.”
