{"id":62827,"date":"2026-09-08T13:29:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T13:29:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/62827\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T13:29:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T13:29:16","slug":"smylie-kaufman-tells-ludvig-aberg-what-he-must-improve-at-if-he-ever-wants-to-get-to-the-next-level","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/62827\/","title":{"rendered":"Smylie Kaufman tells Ludvig Aberg what he must improve at if he ever wants to get to the next level\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\/ Follow us on Google Discover <\/a> <\/p>\n

Ludvig Aberg\u2019s 2026 is incredibly difficult to evaluate. <\/p>\n

For most players, it would be called a great season. Six top-fives in a year is the most of any season of Aberg\u2019s career, and 13 top-20s in 20 starts is remarkable consistency from the 26-year-old. <\/p>\n

But so much was expected of Aberg when he first joined the PGA Tour, and despite solid play over the last few seasons, he simply hasn\u2019t lived up to the hype. He seems to fall apart on Sunday whenever he\u2019s in the mix, and that was on full display when he collapsed at The Players this year. <\/p>\n

Aberg needs to jump to the next level to meet the lofty expectations set for him, and Smylie Kaufman has identified what he must do to improve next season. <\/p>\n

\"LudvigPhoto by David J. Griffin\/Icon Sportswire via Getty ImagesWhat Ludvig Aberg must improve to make it to the next level <\/p>\n

Aberg has been very good in 2026, but not on the level of the players at the very top of the PGA Tour pecking order. <\/p>\n

But on the Smylie Show, Kaufman said he doesn\u2019t have much to fix before everything clicks. He said, \u201cHe\u2019s just got to get better on Sundays. I think that\u2019s the bottom line. I think he needs to just clean up the little things.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really think it\u2019s so simple for him because of how good of a driver he is. He got a little off with the fairway metals and the drivers towards the end, right? He just gets a little bit under. You can see it watching it in person how he\u2019s just kind of a little bit stuck, and then the club just passes him. Just not quite as connected. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut man, when he\u2019s on, it\u2019s so pretty to watch. I still think that at times he looks with his short game where that it I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s that he\u2019s thinking a little bit too hard.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere it just doesn\u2019t look quite as natural where I think if he learned a couple more shots around the greens and got a little bit better at getting up and down, I think that would help him a lot, especially on days where the ball striking wasn\u2019t perfect, that he would be able to kind of manage those rounds a little better, especially on Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

MORE SMYLIE KAUFMAN STORIES<\/p>\n

\u201cBut yeah, this year I think he\u2019s going to look back and be like, \u201cMan, I played great, but the wins just didn\u2019t show for it.\u201d I think Sam Burns is in that same category, but Sam, I think, played just fractionally better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ludvig Aberg\u2019s 2026 statistics are a positive sign for his future <\/p>\n

Aberg\u2019s short game has held him back early in his career. Both on the greens and around them, he\u2019s consistently struggled to convert on his elite ball striking. <\/p>\n

According to Strokes Gained data, he was around tour average on the greens between 2023 and 2025. In 2025, he gained only 0.04 strokes to the field with his chipping. <\/p>\n

But while Aberg was winless this season, he did show some improvement in his play around the greens. He gained 0.2 strokes this season, not spectacular, but it\u2019s now far from a weakness in his game. <\/p>\n

He gained strokes to the field in every single area of his game, and had his best season on approach to the green. He might not have earned a victory, but overall Aberg\u2019s play was elite. <\/p>\n

As Kaufman says, if he can string together four days of solid play and maintain his performance down the stretch on Sunday, then Aberg can be a force to be reckoned with on the PGA Tour in the future. <\/p>\n

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Receive exclusive football transfer news and updates twice a week to your mailbox<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Follow us on Google Discover Ludvig Aberg\u2019s 2026 is incredibly difficult to evaluate. For most players, it would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1388,144,1951],"class_list":["post-62827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ludvig-aberg","tag-ludvig-aberg","tag-pga-tour","tag-smylie-kaufman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}