World No.1 men’s amateur golfer Ludvig Aberg has become only the second player to win the Ben Hogan Award in successive seasons.
The honour is handed out annually to recognise the top college golfer based on collegiate, amateur and professional results, and the Swede has followed up last year’s achievement by emulating Jon Rahm to claim the award for a second year in a row at a black-tie dinner at Colonial Country Club.
The Texas Tech player won the award ahead of fellow finalists Michael Thorbjornsen of Stanford and Gordon Sargent of Vanderbilt, and it marks the latest in a string of achievements for Aberg since he was first handed the honour in May 2022.
The 23-year-old has claimed four victories among nine-top ten finishes since then, most recently in April’s Big 12 Men’s Championship, where he cantered to an eight-shot win over German Jonas Baumgartner. That 15-under 265 also set the tournament records for lowest score and strokes under par.
During the previous 12 months, he also appeared on the DP World Tour twice and four times in PGA Tour events, where his best finish was a tie for 24th at designated event the Arnold Palmer Invitational in March.
As well as heading the World Amateur Golf Ranking, Aberg is also the PGA Tour University’s top player and he seems destined to embark on a full-time career on the PGA Tour sooner rather than later.
That’s because it was announced in 2022 that the top player on the PGA Tour University at the end of the college season will qualify for all open, full-field events as well as having the opportunity to earn FedEx Cup points. From there, the sky appears to be the limit for Aberg, who, assuming his career trajectory continues climbing, is also likely to become a key player for Team Europe in future editions of the Ryder Cup.
Whatever the future holds for Aberg, he could do a lot worse than continue following in the footsteps of Rahm, who won the Ben Hogan Award in 2015 and 2016. The Spaniard has gone on to claim two Major titles among 11 PGA Tour wins, and is currently World No.2.
