FOR THE LONG RUN"

Ludvig Aberg has made quite a start to his professional career, with his eyes now set on climbing higher still in 2025 following a slight pause for surgery last September

- Michael weston

And Relax. Ludvig Aberg is fine. It’s never nice to hear about athletes going under the knife, especially when their careers have yet to really take off, so when the 25-year-old had surgery in September to repair a torn medial meniscus in his left knee, it was concerning.

The Swede withdrew from the Wells Fargo Championship last May because of it and he turned up at the US PGA a week later wearing a knee brace. If he were a footballer (he was actually a decent central midfielder), he’d have been sent for surgery straight away and he’d probably have missed the whole season.

That wasn’t going to happen, though, mainly because the injury only really hindered his ability to squat down and read putts, something he learned to deal with. The other reason for delaying the surgery… well, if you had just broken into the world’s top 10 and were challenging for titles every week, would you take time off?

As it turns out, a torn medial meniscus, as career-threatening as it sounds, was fixed with a relatively simple procedure. After having the surgery in New York, it wasn't long before he was walking around the Big Apple with his girlfriend “like a tourist”.

It would have been nice to know, Ludvig - we were worried about your participation in a certain competition at Bethpage in September (actually, he did post a photo on Instagram of himself looking well post-surgery). If Europe is to win on away soil for the first time since the 'Miracle at Medinah' in 2012, captain Luke Donald will need his smiling assassin.