“Golf is easy when you’re playing with The Stud,” said Viktor Hovland at the end of his morning foursomes match, glancing up admiringly at his teammate. The Stud is Ludvig Aberg, the 23-year-old Swedish Ryder Cup rookie tipped to be the sport’s next big thing. He is tall and slender, with chiseled features, sunken eyes and a disarming smile. And Hovland is right: he makes golf seem easy.
Aberg has been a professional for only four months and has not yet played a major. He didn’t even make the top-four most recognisable faces in their foursomes match against America’s Max Homa and Brian Harman, with Novak Djokovic trailing them around Marco Simone Golf Club. But after an edgy start – “I was very nervous,” Aberg later admitted, and his legs turned to jelly “multiple times” – he soon settled into his Ryder Cup debut.
