ROME — For the entire European Ryder Cup team, Ludvig Aberg was like a new toy at Christmas they couldn’t wait to unwrap and try out.
Aberg is a 23-year-old Swede who’s living proof that the Europeans grow Ryder Cup studs on trees the way Florida and California grow oranges.
Aberg has been out of college (Texas Tech) for what seems like 10 minutes. He turned pro in June and has never even played in a major championship. Yet European Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald couldn’t wait to tab him as one of his six captain’s picks for this week’s matches at Marco Simone Golf and Country Club.
Friday was his unveiling to the world. And no one — other than the U.S. Ryder Cup team and its supporters — was disappointed.
Aberg teamed with Viktor Hovland in the morning foursomes and the two Nordics absolutely smoked Max Homa and Brian Harman 4-and-3 in a match that wasn’t as close as the score indicated.
Like Aberg, Homa and Harman, the reigning British Open champion and oldest member of the U.S. team at 36, were playing in their respective first career Ryder Cup matches.
Unlike Aberg, however, those two looked and performed like rookies.
Aberg played like he belonged. As if he’d played in a few of these things before.
This is precisely why Donald and his team couldn’t wait to see this kid get after it. Because he’s already one of the best drivers of the golf ball on the planet and he appears unaffected by pressure.
Rory McIlroy, one of the veteran leaders of the European side, hadn’t seen Aberg up close until Team Europe came to Marco Simone before the Ryder Cup for a couple days of recon recently.
When McIlroy, ranked No. 3 in the world and known as one of the best drivers in the sport, saw Aberg, he told him, “I’ve been looking forward to this for a while.”
“I was on the bandwagon before,” McIlroy said earlier this week of Aberg. “I’m certainly at the front of it now.”
With two hands on the wheel.
Donald called Aberg “a generational talent.’’
“Ludvig came on to my radar at the beginning of the year in Dubai,’’ Donald recalled. “He was paired with Edoardo Molinari, one of my vice captains, and Edoardo was like, ‘We need to keep an eye on this guy.’ When you play with certain players, you can tell. They have a certain talent that when you see them hit golf balls and you’re blown away, just by the different strike, the sound, the trajectory. How he can drive a golf ball is very, very impressive.”
Donald played with Aberg at the Rocket Mortgage Championship in Detroit, where Åberg was 9-under-par under through 16 holes.
“Pretty impressive when he knew I was watching him,’’ Donald said. “Every week, he just kept getting better and better. He had a chance to win the John Deere, then he came over to Europe, with a couple weeks to go, and had a very strong finish in the Czech Masters, and obviously went on to win at the European Masters. Then he was two shots ahead after three rounds in our biggest event in Europe at Wentworth. Whenever he was asked to play well under scrutiny, he seemed to perform at a very high level.
“His pedigree is just starting,” Donald went on. “He’s just getting on his road. He’s just starting to write his history.’’
Friday was quite a good start.
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