Ludvig Aberg Emulates Jon Rahm With Back-To-Back Ben Hogan Awards

The future of the European Ryder Cup team appears to be in good hands following the Swedish amateur's latest win

Ludvig Aberg takes a shot at the 2023 Arnold Palmer Invitational
Ludvig Aberg has won the Ben Hogan Award for the second successive year
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Mike Hall
By
published

World No.1 men’s amateur golfer Ludvig Aberg has become only the second player to win the Ben Hogan Award in successive seasons.

The honour is handed out annually to recognise the top college golfer based on collegiate, amateur and professional results, and the Swede has followed up last year’s achievement by emulating Jon Rahm to claim the award for a second year in a row at a black-tie dinner at Colonial Country Club. 

The Texas Tech player won the award ahead of fellow finalists Michael Thorbjornsen of Stanford and Gordon Sargent of Vanderbilt, and it marks the latest in a string of achievements for Aberg since he was first handed the honour in May 2022.

The 23-year-old has claimed four victories among nine-top ten finishes since then, most recently in April’s Big 12 Men’s Championship, where he cantered to an eight-shot win over German Jonas Baumgartner. That 15-under 265 also set the tournament records for lowest score and strokes under par.

During the previous 12 months, he also appeared on the DP World Tour twice and four times in PGA Tour events, where his best finish was a tie for 24th at designated event the Arnold Palmer Invitational in March.

As well as heading the World Amateur Golf Ranking, Aberg is also the PGA Tour University’s top player and he seems destined to embark on a full-time career on the PGA Tour sooner rather than later.

That’s because it was announced in 2022 that the top player on the PGA Tour University at the end of the college season will qualify for all open, full-field events as well as having the opportunity to earn FedEx Cup points. From there, the sky appears to be the limit for Aberg, who, assuming his career trajectory continues climbing, is also likely to become a key player for Team Europe in future editions of the Ryder Cup.

Whatever the future holds for Aberg, he could do a lot worse than continue following in the footsteps of Rahm, who won the Ben Hogan Award in 2015 and 2016. The Spaniard has gone on to claim two Major titles among 11 PGA Tour wins, and is currently World No.2.

Mike Hall
Mike Hall
News Writer

Mike has over 25 years of experience in journalism, including writing on a range of sports throughout that time, such as golf, football and cricket. Now a freelance staff writer for Golf Monthly, he is dedicated to covering the game's most newsworthy stories. 

He has written hundreds of articles on the game, from features offering insights into how members of the public can play some of the world's most revered courses, to breaking news stories affecting everything from the PGA Tour and LIV Golf to developmental Tours and the amateur game. 

Mike grew up in East Yorkshire and began his career in journalism in 1997. He then moved to London in 2003 as his career flourished, and nowadays resides in New Brunswick, Canada, where he and his wife raise their young family less than a mile from his local course. 

Kevin Cook’s acclaimed 2007 biography, Tommy’s Honour, about golf’s founding father and son, remains one of his all-time favourite sports books.

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