Ludvig Aberg takes advantage of a rule change on replacing damaged drivers

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ludvig Aberg and caddie Joe Skovron are part of a small slice of rules history. They were the first to take advantage of the 2026 rules update that allows for a damaged club to be replaced on the spot.

In this case, it was the 18th tee in the third round at Pebble Beach.

Aberg hit his drive out of bounds down the right side on the par-5 18th — his ninth hole — and noticed the face of his driver was cracked.

Model Local Rule G-9 was updated at the start of 2025 to include a visible crack in the face (Matt Fitzpatrick had been denied a chance to replace his driver in the BMW Championship at Castle Pines the year before). But they still had to keep the spare driver or part in the locker room.

This year, the PGA Tour asked for an update that allowed players to keep a spare driver head in their bag and change it on the course when the club was deemed to be damaged.

“They sent out rules changes at the start of the year and one of them was you no longer had to keep it (the replacement) in the locker,” Skovron said. “Before, someone had to get it for you. Now you can carry it in the bag, and if your driver is deemed damaged, you could put that one in. I had the backup in the belly of the bag.”

Skovron said it makes sense for power players with high speed and faces that are increasingly thin.

Aberg called for an official, the crack was approved and Skovron attached the replacement. Otherwise, Aberg would have had to use his 3-wood for his next tee shot, and the driver could not be replaced until they made the turn near the clubhouse. Aberg nearly salvaged par, reaching the green in two and narrowly missing an 18-foot putt.

PGA Tour rules official Steve Rintoul said what happened to Aberg was a “perfect example why we pushed hard for the local rule to change.”

“A guy discovers a crack on the 10th tee, his caddie can go to the locker room. If it’s on the 14th tee, it might be two holes before he gets it,” Rintoul said. “We like the fact if a club is cracked or broken, it can be replaced right there. The old method of the replacement was so archaic.”

Rory’s quest

Rory McIlroy finally got the Masters green jacket and the career Grand Slam last April, and he constantly was asked the rest of the year what was left to pursue.

His answer might be as much about venue as trophies.

“There’s places I haven’t won that I would love to, St. Andrews being one of them,” McIlroy said. “Riviera would be another.”

McIlroy lumps in Riviera with Muirfield Village (site of the Memorial, which he skipped last year) because of who hosts them — Tiger Woods at the Genesis Invitational this week at Riviera, Jack Nicklaus at the Memorial. McIlroy already has won at Bay Hill hosted by the late Arnold Palmer.

But it’s mostly about history, which is why winning at Pebble Beach last year was special. He was gutted to be runner-up at 2024 Irish Open at Royal County Down in his native Northern Ireland.

He can tick off Riviera this week, a course that Woods played the most times (13 times as a pro) without winning. Nicklaus didn’t win at Riviera, either.

But the big one for McIlroy is next year — a British Open at St. Andrews. McIlroy had a share of the 54-hole lead on the Old Course in 2022 until his putter went colder than the North Sea and he was overtaken by Cameron Smith.

The Open returns to St. Andrews in 2027. McIlroy also has played the Dunhill Links (St. Andrews is the host course) 10 times without winning. He has three runner-up finishes.

Rolapp and Nantz

Brian Rolapp has been CEO of PGA Tour Enterprises since last summer and is still relatively new to golf after some 20 years at the NFL. But as he spoke at the annual CBS reception at Pebble Beach, he said he has known CBS announcer Jim Nantz longer than anyone else in the room.

It wasn’t an NFL connection, either.

Rolapp was waiting tables at a JW Steakhouse in Washington one summer while home from college in the early 1990s when his customer one evening was Nantz, who was in town to cover the Kemper Open.

Rolapp introduced himself by saying, “I think maybe one day I might be in the sports business.”

“And he could not have been more gracious with his time,” Rolapp said. “I was nobody, he was somebody and that’s my introduction to Jim Nantz.”

“So how was the tip?” Nantz said when Rolapp finished the story.

Rolapp didn’t miss a beat.

“Nobody’s perfect,” he said.

The missing club

Augusta National asks the Masters champion to donate a club that was instrumental in their victory, and it now has the 7-iron Rory McIlroy used to hit that sublime shot to 6 feet on the par-5 15th hole in the final round.

He just didn’t realize he had actually donated it.

“I flew back the day after and I basically didn’t see my golf clubs since like post the playoff,” McIlroy said last week. “And I saw that my 7-iron was missing. That’s a pretty important club.”

Turns out his manager had already given it to Augusta National and forgot to tell McIlroy. That was easily replaced, and besides, McIlroy agreed with the choice.

“If there was one I was going to give the club, it was probably going to be that one,” he said.

Winning and weeping

Chris Gotterup is big and powerful, right up until he wins. And then he melts. He has four PGA Tour wins, making him 0-4 in getting through an interview without crying.

He has no idea why it happens.

“My girlfriend was like, ‘You’ve never cried in the two years that we’ve dated, only when you won,’” Gotterup said. “I don’t know what causes it or why, but it happens. It’s just a crazy feeling. You’re trying to suppress everything all week, there’s so much going through your head and then all of a sudden when the putt drops, it’s just like your brain lets everything back in.

“It’s an overwhelming amount of stuff hitting you at the same time and realizing what you just did.”

Divots

Geoff Yang is replacing Jim Hyler as chairman of the Masters committee on Rules and Competition. Hyler had held the role since the 2018 Masters. Yang, who formerly served on the USGA executive committee, has been on the Masters rules committee since 2007 and the competition committee since 2018. … Collin Morikawa posted the second-lowest weekend score (129) in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. The lowest was Tiger Woods (63-64) in 1997, when he was runner-up to Mark O’Meara. … Chris Gotterup was No. 28 in the world when he won the Sony Open. That remains the worst world ranking of a PGA Tour winner this year. … Sahith Theegala is the first Presidents Cup player to earn the Charlie Sifford Memorial Exemption to the Genesis Invitational, given to illustrate advances in diversity in golf.

Stat of the week

Scottie Scheffler has not been closer than seven shots of the winner in five appearances at Riviera.

Final word

“The ‘1% better every day’ thing is a mindset that I’m going to carry with me until the day I die. I don’t see why I can’t make it to the top again.” — Anthony Kim after winning LIV Golf Adelaide for his first victory in nearly 16 years.

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