Why Ludvig Aberg has justifiable dreams in Charlotte’s PGA Championship
Ludvig Aberg has heard that Quail Hollow is “a big boy golf course.”
Such as:
There are some really long holes, particularly the last three in The Green Mile, all of which have been exacerbated by storms this past week that are keeping the fairways wet and ball rolls off drives minimal. The greens are firm, even with the recent rain. The pine trees are towering and the fairways are twisting and the bunkers are deep and treacherous.
Of course, Aberg can only know so much about Charlotte’s jewel right now. That’s because this week represents a few firsts for him.
“I’ve never played this tournament before,” Ludvig told reporters Wednesday, the last day of practice before the rounds begin Thursday. “I’ve never played this golf course in a tournament setting. So it will be a first for me. I wasn’t playing here last year and obviously the year before, I was in school.”
He added: “We were here right before I went to Philly just to play it, just to play the golf course and see start lines off the tee and get a little bit more familiar. But first time I’ll see it in a tournament. It’s a great golf course. You’ve got to hit some shots if you want to win this tournament.”
Aberg’s newness — and earnestness about Quail Hollow — makes sense. It is, after all, a big-time course that has taken some of the best in the game prisoner while treating the sport’s best — Rory McIlroy included — very well.
But if you track Aberg’s meteoric ascent in the sport of golf, you’ll discern that the 25-year-old Swede’s dreams of winning his first major in Charlotte aren’t merely admirable. They’re justifiable, too.
Take a look at his career to date:
Aberg spent an accolades-laden four years at Texas Tech through June 2023. He won the inaugural PGA Tour U season there, which earned him a full PGA TOUR card for the remainder of the 2023 season and the entire 2024 season. From there, he got a call to compete at the Ryder Cup — playing for the European team captained by Luke Donald — and considered it “cool to see that when I was playing well, that my game was just as good as those guys.”
Tack that onto a special 2024, where he finished second at the Masters behind Scottie Scheffler, which helped fuel his current No. 6 world ranking, and he had something good. Add on a nearly forever-memorable back-nine performance at this year’s Masters — where he was tied with McIlroy and Justin Rose at 10-under with two holes to go — and you’ll see he has something great.
The best part? He didn’t even think he was playing his best golf at the Masters a few weeks ago.
“I think what I thought was really cool about that week was that I felt like I wasn’t hitting it very well,” Aberg said. “I was sort of, not scraping it around but it was very average in my opinion the way that I was hitting the ball.
“Going into that event, I knew that I had things to work on in my golf swing. But I was still able to sort of pull something out of the hat and be in contention on Sunday, which tells me that it gave me a lot of comfort knowing that I could do that.”
There are other indicators that say Aberg could perform well at Quail Hollow. His caddie, for one, is Joe Skovron, who won here with Rickie Fowler in 2012, and who has caddied here for decades. He’s hitting his driver well, for another, which he said he saw some “positives last week in Philly.”
The sportsbooks love him, too. He’s +400 to finish in the Top 5 — tied with Collin Morikawa and just behind Justin Thomas and Zander Schauffele — and +2800 to win it all, according to DraftKings.
Yes, it’s Aberg’s first time playing at Quail Hollow in this capacity. It’s also only his second season, an early time to win a major, no doubt.
But it’s not unreasonable to call him a contender — considering his quick rise, his recent acquaintanceship with the sport’s biggest moments, the way he’s playing right now.
Quail Hollow is a course for the best, yes. The “big boys.” And that’s who Aberg, so far, has proven to be.
This story was originally published May 15, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
