Ludvig Aberg exploded onto the golfing scene as an amateur.
He was the number one-ranked amateur in the world, was the first player to play in a Ryder Cup before playing in a major championship, and finished second in his first appearance at The Masters.
The 26-year-old already has two wins on the PGA Tour to his name, but 2025 didn’t pan out quite as a Swede would have liked. Yes, he won the Genesis Invitational at Torrey Pines, but he missed the cut at two of the four major championships.
But Aberg said he’s learned a lot from last season, which petered out after a hot start. He’s making a big change in 2026 to right some of the wrongs of the previous year.
What Ludvig Aberg learned from 2025
The PGA Tour schedule is long and gruelling, and sometimes players can overwork themselves and burn out throughout the season. Aberg learned that the hard way in 2025.
Ahead of his first appearance in the 2026 season, the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines, he said that he’ll be working less this year.
He told reporters, “I felt like ’25 for me was a great year in terms of realizing structure and realizing things that work for me and things that doesn’t work for me in terms of my training, practice, preparation.
“The first couple of years or first year, you just kind of do everything on the go and on the fly. I felt like last year it gave me a lot of knowledge in terms of what direction I really want to go and how do you want to structure off weeks and all those kind of things that I felt like I took away a lot from last year.
“And those things aren’t necessarily going to translate into results right away, but it’s definitely going to give me a foundation I can rely on.
When asked what the biggest thing he learned was, Aberg said, “Off weeks for me in ’25 looked very hard. Long days, lots of practice, lots of play, so sort of early mornings.
“And the change that I’ve done for this year, at least the start of this year, end of last year is that I just don’t do that. I take it a little lighter, make sure that I have the energy because it is a long year on Tour.
“You play 25 to 28 events and when you have an off week, yes, you do need to practice obviously, you do need to play and prepare but you don’t need to beat yourself down.
“I do need to work out and I do need to do those things, which I enjoy and I like, but I feel like come Saturday, Sunday of an off week, you need to have the energy as well for a tournament stretch coming up. So that will be one thing that I could take away.”
For someone with Aberg’s work ethic, the most difficult thing sometimes is not working. But it’s the best thing for his game.
Ludvig Aberg explains why Torrey Pines suits his game
While Harris English is the reigning champion at the Farmers Insurance Open, Ludvig Aberg is actually the most recent winner at Torrey Pines on the PGA Tour. That’s because the Genesis Invitational was also played at this iconic venue last season.
He won by a stroke ahead of Maverick McNealy to claim his second win on the PGA Tour, and explained upon his return to the course why it suits his game so well.
Aberg said, “I think if you look at the past winners here and guys who have had a lot of success on this golf course, you tend to see higher ball speed drivers, and you tend to see guys that have the high ball flight with the irons because the South gets really hard, the rough is definitely up, and it’s just a good golf course.
“So do I feel like that fits my game? Probably. And I like the way that it looks, visually it looks nice to me. Did that have anything to do with me winning last year? Maybe, I don’t know, but you still have to hit the shots.
“Whether you like it or not, you still have to be on the correct sides of these holes and hit the fairways, and if you don’t do that, you’re going to struggle. But yeah, obviously I do like it here and I’m looking forward to the next couple days.”
Aberg withdrew from last week’s American Express with a fever, so the Farmers Insurance Open presents a great opportunity to start his 2026 season the right way.
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