PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

May 14, 2025

Ludvig Aberg

Quail Hollow Club

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: We are joined by Ludvig Ã…berg, here at Quail Hollow for the the 107th Championship, your second PGA Championship. What you are your thoughts on the golf course heading into your first round.

LUDVIG Ã…BERG: It's a really nice golf course. It requires a lot of good shots.

I've heard the term "Big Boy golf course," which describes this one very well, and some really long holes now. The fairways are still wet. You're not getting any roll off the tee and greens are firming up with the SubAir.

It will be a good challenge, it will be long and the greens would be, I would imagine, getting a little firmer. It will be nice. I've had a couple of weeks where things are clicking a little bit more, which has been very nice, and it's been nice to spend had time here with my coach, Hans (Larssen). Last time I saw him was Augusta. I feel like we're moving which is always a positive.

Q. Can you be a little more specific, like click in a little bit more? What things are working for you now?

LUDVIG Ã…BERG: Yeah, I have sort of this tendency in my golf swing where my face gets a little bit too open at times and when it gets open, I can't really turn, technically speaking, that's what happens.

So we've been working on getting the face a little bit more shut at address and at impact, which allows me to be a little bit more active in my body. Allows me to be a little bit more athletic, which is nice.

So yeah, we've just been working through that, which has been nice. I saw some positives last week in Philly with my driver, which was really nice. That will be a key this week to hit that driver very well if you want to compete. So looking forward to do that and keep improving on that.

Q. Another quick thing. A golf course like this, a lot of the players have competed several times, coming to PGA TOUR events and now coming to a PGA. What do you think will be the main difference to this week as a PGA event, as a major, compared to the experience that you had other times here?

LUDVIG Ã…BERG: Yeah, I've never played this tournament before. 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. So this will be my first time seeing it in a tournament setting.

We were here leaked 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. But it's a great golf course. You've got to hit some shots if you want to win this tournament.

Q. Fellow Swede Ingrid Lindblad first got her first LPGA win recently. Both of you are at similar points in your career and had a lot of early success. What do you attribute to the two-year success, and can you feed off her and continue your career success as well?

LUDVIG Ã…BERG: It's amazing, Ingrid, she's a really good player. She was really good in college at LSU, winning however many times that was, and it's cool to see her (win).

I think she was starting out on the Epson Tour and worked her way up on the LPGA, and I wasn't surprised when I saw her win that first event. I think she's going to have a lot more coming.

But yeah, I think it speaks a lot to the Swedish Federation. We are both sort of coming through the same program. We've sort of seen the same coaches and in the same sort of upbringing, and it's very good. I think you'll keep seeing good players.

I mean, we have a lot of good players coming up, Challenge Tour guys, European DP World Tour guys, and also now a couple of PGA TOUR guys. I think Swedish golf is definitely strong and I think it's just going to get stronger, too.

Q. I wanted to say, what are your thoughts overall with groupings? I know you're playing your own game but how much of an effect does your grouping have for a major championship? And also, just with the new course, like how much do you lean on Joe Skovron, your caddie?

LUDVIG Ã…BERG: Did he say "grouping"? Pairing?

Yeah, I mean, I think you want to play with good players. You want to play with guys that you know are going to play well and I think that's the case in my pairing over the next couple days. You always want to feed off good golf shots. You want to see putts go in. You want to see good shots being hit. I'm sure we are going to get a lot of that coming up over the next couple days with Jordan and Patrick.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. It will be a cool challenge. Obviously major championship is a little bit more than a regular TOUR event, but I do like those challenges.

Q. How much will you last season off of Joe Skovron, your caddie, for this course?

LUDVIG Ã…BERG: Yeah, a bunch. A few years ago, him and Rickie's first tour event here; he's seen the golf course a bunch.

Obviously it's changed a little bit over the years from what I've heard, but yeah, I'll lean on him no matter what tournament we're playing in. But obviously a golf course where I haven't been and he's been here a ton, I think I'll lien a little bit more than I usually do.

Q. Taking you back to 2023, you go from NCAA finals to Ryder Cup in a matter of months, no? So you look at that in perspective now, how do you see that year?

LUDVIG Ã…BERG: It went quick those last months after school but I felt like I was prepared for it. I felt like I was prepared golf-wise and mentally I was up for the challenge. I think I handled that very well.

I knew it was going to be a lot and, I knew it was going to be a big change on the golf course, and different things to deal with and different things sort of heading my direction, but I felt like I handled it with -- I try to have fun with it. I try to obviously take it pretty light even though I'm a competitor but it was cool.

It was cool. It shows how strong college golf is. I think you'll see multiple guys after me do the same thing, and it looks like we're going to have a few guys coming through on TOUR through the PGA TOUR U program this year, this summer, when they are turning pro after NCAA.

I think you'll keep seeing it. But I consider myself very fortunate to sort of be the first guy to really take advantage of it.

Q. So when you say "prepare for it," I mean, like now, two years later, can you use that to be in contention for the major championship and how do you see the Ryder Cup this year compared to two years ago?

LUDVIG Ã…BERG: Yeah, I mean, I think the experiences that I've had over the last almost two years has definitely helped me.

The Ryder Cup in '23 definitely helped me because I was able to hang out with those guys that I had really only seen on TV up until that point.

It was cool to see that when I was playing well that my game was just as good as those guys, which gave me a lot of comfort and confidence going forward. I think, you know, until you've seen what the best players do, you don't really know how good is good. Obviously you see it on TV but to have conversations with them, that really helped me.

Obviously I want to be on the team this year, as well. That's something that I heard when I did it the first time in Rome, if you've ever been on one team, you never want to miss it again, and that's very true, and that's how I feel about Bethpage this year.

Q. I wanted to ask about your Masters experience from a couple weeks ago. How do you look back on that now, and is there anything that you've learned that you can take in to Charlotte this week?

LUDVIG Ã…BERG: Yeah, I think what I thought was really cool about that week was that I felt like I wasn't hitting it very well. 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 the Sunday, which tells me that it gave me a lot of comfort knowing that I could do that, and obviously I would have loved to have those last couple of those go a little bit different.

But I was also proud of the way that I was able to put myself there knowing that I wasn't swinging it very nice and I wasn't chipping it very nice, but I was still able to find something and have a chance to win it.