For many, Ludvig Aberg enjoyed a breakout moment with his victory at the Genesis Invitational as the Swede clinched his second PGA Tour title in the event at Torrey Pines earlier this month.
Ludvig Aberg has been a player the golfing world has known about for a long time. He made his Ryder Cup debut before he had ever played in a major, while his first appearance at the Masters culminated in a second place finish.
He had previously won on the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour. However, having been winless in 2024, it appeared that the golfing world was waiting for the moment in which Aberg would confirm that all of the hype was indeed real.
That moment came at Torrey Pines last week.
Hank Haney not convinced Ludvig Aberg is golf’s next superstar
Aberg produced a masterclass on Sunday to win by one at the Genesis Invitational. Tiger Woods lauded Aberg as he came down the stretch during the final round. And he showed what he is made of by looking so comfortable over the tester of a putt he had to win.
But it seems that some are not as convinced. Hank Haney has previously expressed doubt about Aberg. And speaking on his podcast, Haney suggested that there have been too many players who failed to hit the heights for him to believe that Aberg is going to be better than exceptional.
“You’ve got to have a superstar, and it’s not going to be Ludvig Aberg, even though Ludvig Aberg won at the Genesis at Torrey Pines, where they played Torrey Pines twice in a month – which is weird – but they had to do because of the fires in LA, and they couldn’t play at Pacific Palisades because it’s all devastated with the fires. So they had to move it down to San Diego to a golf course that was ready for a tournament because they just played the Farmers Insurance there. And he wins that tournament. It was a great win, great player,” he said.
“I love all these sliced breads, you know. Somebody on Twitter sent me, ‘hey, what do you think about this?’ Ludvig Aberg, he’s got a great swing, he made a clutch putt on 18 to win the tournament. He looks fantastic. I’m not saying he doesn’t, he looks great. But there’s always this new sliced bread, and especially they go crazy when the greatest thing since sliced bread is coming from Europe. I remember back in the day, it was Victor Dubuisson, he was the new sliced bread. And then it was Thomas Pieters, I think Darren Clarke announced that was the new sliced bread. And now it’s Ludvig Aberg who’s the new sliced bread.
“Now, he’s probably the closest one to the sliced bread. He looks awful good, picture book swing and powerful and a great clutch putter – I think he showed on the 18th hole. But the fact of the matter is that the dominant player, and it’s hard to dominate nowadays in professional golf, the competition’s just so good.”
What happened to Victor Dubuisson and Thomas Pieters as questions asked of Ludvig Aberg
Thomas Pieters, of course, decided to join LIV Golf after struggling to make the grade on the PGA Tour. The Belgian made a real statement after winning four points from five matches at the 2016 Ryder Cup. Despite Europe losing comfortably, Pieters was the leading points scorer on either side that week at Hazeltine.
His best result on LIV was a tied fifth finish in Singapore last year. But he has finished inside the top 20 in both of the first two events in 2025.
Victor Dubuisson meanwhile, is one of those players who made a huge impact in a short space of time before almost completely disappearing from the spotlight.
Dubuisson gave Jason Day nightmares at the 2014 Match Play Championship, with the Frenchman refusing to be beaten for so long in the final despite putting himself in all sorts of strange places on the course. And he went on to impress at the the Ryder Cup later that year.
Within a decade, he had decided to retire at the age of 33.
Of course, few would have expected that that would happen with Dubuisson or Pieters. But it seems incredibly hard to imagine that Aberg going down anything like the same path given what he has already shown at this stage of his career.
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