1 week Ago
AUGUSTA - Augusta National Golf Club has been a friend to Ludvig Åberg After finishing runner-up in last year’s tournament, the Swede has positioned himself to make another final-round run in his second Masters appearance after finishing 6 under on April 12. “It was nice to sort of bounce back,” he said. “I had a stretch sort of middle round-ish where I got away with a lot of par saves, which at some point it's going to happen, and it was really nice to see those putts go in, and knowing that as long as you stay patient and disciplined you're going to get some chances here and there.
Proud of that, and it was nice to sort of make a couple birdies on the back nine.” At T-4, he has put himself in the same position as 2024, when he also went into the final day in solo fourth place at 4 under. The biggest difference this year has been his start to the week.
He improved his first-round 73 by five strokes this time around with the help of four birdies in his second nine. While Åberg looked poised to keep the momentum going in round two, he ran into trouble on holes 17 and 18, two of the trickiest holes for players across the board this week. Bogeys on both left him at 1 over on the day and 3 under overall.
After finishing his round on Friday, he said it’s been all about patience this week. “I think [Augusta National] demands so much discipline,” Åberg said. “It demands a lot of patience; which I think we've had over the last couple of days.
I'd love to be a little bit sharper. But I think in general, you can't really force things around here. Sometimes par is a good score.
Sometimes even on the par-5s, sometimes par is a good score. Hopefully we can be a little bit sharper, but it's a cool place to play golf at.” The patience paid off on April 12, especially after he opened the day with another bogey on the first hole and another on hole 4.
Two birdies on the first nine put him back where he started at 3 under. As with round one, Åberg found his groove on the second nine as he climbed back into the mix with three consecutive birdies on 14, 15 and 16. Rory McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau locked in their spot at the top of the leaderboard going into Sunday at 12 under and 10 under, respectively, but at Augusta National anything can happen in the final round.
And Åberg wouldn’t be the first runner-up to come back and win it all the next year. In 2014, Jordan Spieth finished as co-runner-up in his Masters debut behind Bubba Watson, who won at Augusta for the second time. In his second try, he secured his only green jacket at just 21 years old and matched Tiger Woods’ 72-hole scoring record with an 18-under finish.
Then in 2020, Dustin Johnson came back after finishing runner-up to Woods the previous year to win the tournament for the first time, breaking Woods' and Spieth's scoring records in the process after finishing 20-under par at the COVID-postponed fall edition of the tournament. At six strokes back from the lead, Åberg has a tall hill to climb back to the top to add his name to the others who have conquered Augusta in their second try and been able to come back from runner-up to claim it all. But Åberg said the biggest lesson he learned from last year is that he’s ready to face these big moments head-on.
“I think just knowing that I can be in this situation and still play really good golf,” he said. “I think I teed off in the second or third to last group last year, and it was really cool to feel all the buzz and feel all the excitement and nerves and still able to go out and shoot a good score. So hopefully we can do that tomorrow again and see where it ends up.
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