Sports

Smylie Kaufman tells Ludvig Aberg what he must improve at if he ever wants to get to the next level

Nairavoice · Sep 8, 2026 · 3 min read

Ludvig Aberg’s 2026 is incredibly difficult to evaluate.

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

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’t lived up to the hype. He seems to fall apart on Sunday whenever he’s in the mix, and that was on full display when he collapsed at The Players this year.

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.

What Ludvig Aberg must improve to make it to the next level

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.

But on the Smylie Show, Kaufman said he doesn’t have much to fix before everything clicks. He said, “He’s just got to get better on Sundays. I think that’s the bottom line. I think he needs to just clean up the little things.

“I really think it’s 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’s just kind of a little bit stuck, and then the club just passes him. Just not quite as connected.

“But man, when he’s on, it’s so pretty to watch. I still think that at times he looks with his short game where that it I don’t know if it’s that he’s thinking a little bit too hard.

“Where it just doesn’t 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’t perfect, that he would be able to kind of manage those rounds a little better, especially on Sunday.

“But yeah, this year I think he’s going to look back and be like, “Man, I played great, but the wins just didn’t show for it.” I think Sam Burns is in that same category, but Sam, I think, played just fractionally better.”

Ludvig Aberg’s 2026 statistics are a positive sign for his future

Aberg’s short game has held him back early in his career. Both on the greens and around them, he’s consistently struggled to convert on his elite ball striking.

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.

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’s now far from a weakness in his game.

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’s play was elite.

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.