Ludvig Åberg found his groove on Friday at the U.S. Open, becoming the solo leader after 36 holes. He posted a 1-under 69 to move to a 5-under overall and holds a one-shot lead heading into Saturday’s third round.
Once again, the former Texas Tech Red Raider is in contention at a major in 2024. He played Augusta National, another difficult golf course, exceptionally well. Åberg finished runner-up to World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler at this year’s Masters.
But he made some mistakes down the stretch, notably on the 11th hole, which cost him a chance at a Green Jacket. As such, Åberg will have a chance to put those experiences to work this weekend in North Carolina.
“I think Augusta proved to me that I was able to be in that position,” Åberg said.
“It was more of a justification of you can be there and contend on a Sunday. The golf course also played very difficult. It demanded a lot of patience and discipline, just like this one does. I feel like those experiences that I had back in April were great. Hopefully, we’ll draw some similarities between those.”
The young Swede continued to plug right along at Pinehurst No. 2 on Friday. He remained extremely consistent, hitting 12-of-14 fairways and finding 14-of-18 greens. The 24-year-old has missed just two fairways and six greens over the first two days overall.
To this point, he leads the field in both total strokes gained and strokes gained off the tee.
Yet, he did not have his best day on Friday, even though he recorded three birdies and two bogeys on his round. Still, his round was consistent enough to push him up the leaderboard and into the solo lead.
“Felt like I hit it very nicely today,” Åberg said.
Photo by Tracy Wilcox/PGA Tour via Getty Images
“It was very challenging, and it’s not an easy golf course. I felt like we stayed very disciplined, stayed very patient, and tried to hit it to our targets all the time and see how many good shots we can hit today and see where that ends up at the end.”
He looks to become the first player in 110 years to win in his U.S. Open debut. Francis Ouimet famously did so in 1913 at The Country Club at Brookline as an amateur, which many say put the U.S. Open on the map. Other pundits call Ouimet’s win the most important victory in professional golf history.
Nevertheless, the U.S. Open has transformed into the toughest test in golf, with Pinehurst taking no prisoners.
“I think a U.S. Open is supposed to be hard,” he said.
“It’s supposed to be tricky. It’s supposed to challenge any aspect of your game, and I feel it’s really doing that. But I’m super fortunate with the way that things have turned out over the last couple of days, and hopefully, we’ll be able to keep it up.”
Despite its difficulty, Åberg knows this track fairly well. He played a U.S. Amateur at Pinehurst in 2019 but failed to advance past the round of 32. That experience taught him a lot about how to take on this tricky golf course.
“I think with the way those greens are when it gets really firm—you don’t really have any bail-out areas; you’ve got to take on the golf shots and see where it ends up,” Åberg said.
“If you don’t pull it off, you’re going to have a really tricky short game shot. I think it’s a challenging golf course, but once again, that’s how it was supposed to be.”
Åberg and Bryson DeChambeau will comprise the final pairing for the third round of the U.S. Open.
Savannah Leigh Richardson is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. For more golf coverage, be sure to follow us @_PlayingThrough on all major social platforms. You can also follow her on Twitter @SportsGirlSL and Instagram @savannah_leigh_sports.