Redemption moment for Ludvig Aberg at Genesis Invitational
LA JOLLA, Calif. — Walking down one of the final holes at Torrey Pines Golf Course, Ludvig Aberg turned to his caddie, Joe Skovron, and said, “This Sunday is a little bit more fun than the one we had at the Farmers.”
It was a reference to a month ago at the annual PGA Tour stop in San Diego, where Aberg held the 36-hole lead at the Farmers Insurance Open before battling a stomach infection all night ahead of the third round. He threw up on both the range and on the course but tried to gut it out. He went more than 48 hours without keeping any food down, losing a quick eight pounds, and shooting a final-round 79 to tumble to a T-42 finish. He attempted to play the next week at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am but that was no better. He opened with 77, tying the longest stretch of over-par rounds in his Tour career. Afterwards, he crashed in his room and when he woke up he still felt so crummy that he said he had no choice but to withdraw from the tournament. He flew home to Florida and said he stayed in his bed until Tuesday of the following week before he resumed training.
Sunday, in the Tour’s unexpected return to Torrey Pines, Aberg enjoyed a week of redemption, ripping off four birdies in his final six holes to shoot 66 and win the Genesis Invitational by one stroke over Maverick McNealy.
Perhaps no one was happier to hear that the Genesis Invitational would be relocated to Torrey Pines than Aberg. Wildfires in the greater Los Angeles area last month made it impossible to host the event at Riviera, the typical venue for the Tour's annual visit to Tinseltown and forced the Tour to scurry for a replacement course.
“I was thrilled,” Aberg said. “I love this place, I think it's one of the best golf courses that we play.”
Aberg shot 2-over 74 on Thursday in wet, tough conditions but bounced back with 66 on Friday and a third-round 70, which included his first ace on Tour, leaving him alone in third place and two strokes back heading into the final round.
On a Chamber of Commerce Day, several players including world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler made a charge up the leaderboard. Scheffler toured the front in 31 but that wasn’t even the low score on the front nine. McNealy, who along with Scheffler started the day five strokes back, shot 30 as he birdied nine of the first 13 holes.
“It's really fun when the ball's coming off exactly like you want, when you're standing over a putt and you feel like it's just going to go in,” McNealy said. “It's one of those things you get on a roll, you know it's going to come to an end at some point but you just want to extend is as much as possible.”
McNealy made his lone bogey of the day at 14, his first in 26 holes, and missed a 15-foot birdie attempt at 18. He signed for 8-under 64.
Aberg was stuck in neutral early, trading birdies at Nos. 2 and 3 with bogeys at Nos. 4 and 5, but the 25-year-old Swede never buckled.
“He always just keeps going,” Skovron said. “He doesn’t get rattled by much.”
Aberg responded with a beautiful approach at the seventh to set up a 7-foot birdie and added a kick-in birdie at 9. But with McNealy leading at 12 under, Aberg still had ground to make up. He canned a must-make, 7-foot left-to-right bending par putt at No. 12 to stay in the mix.
“I think if I hadn't made that one, I don't think I would have won today,” he said.
Aberg said he felt in control of his ball flight all day and he strung together three birdies in a row beginning at 13, including a 25-foot putt at 15. Still, he arrived at the par-5 18th tied for the lead. He striped a tee shot and easily cleared the pond fronting the green, his ball stopping 68 feet from the hole on the back fringe of the green. Aberg left himself 7 feet for the win and clenched both fists after the final of his 276 shots for the week dropped for his second career Tour title.
Scheffler (66) and 54-hole leader Patrick Rodgers (71) tied for third at 9 under. Patrick Cantlay (68), Denny McCarthy (71), Tommy Fleetwood (68) and Tony Finau (68) tied for fifth at 8 under.
A month ago, tournament host Tiger Woods, stood behind Aberg and watched him hit balls for 10 minutes before a TGL match in awe. On CBS, Tiger said of Aberg’s swing, "Not a whole lot can go wrong with it. Occasionally he might speed up a bit and get stuck under but other than that, he hits this tight little draw." A month later, Aberg stood next to Tiger and received the winner's trophy from his childhood idol.
“Tiger’s the GOAT, he’s my GOAT, he means so much to our sport and to stand here as the tournament champion, I’m so proud and thankful,” he said.
And with a few pounds still to be gained to get back to his fighting weight, how was Aberg going to celebrate his victory?
"Good question," he said. "I feel like this is my last day on the west coast for quite some time, so I think In-N-Out would be appropriate. I'm not going to be back on the west coast for a while, so I think I'll take advantage of that opportunity."
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Ludvig Aberg birdies 4 of his final 6 holes to win Genesis at Torrey
