{"id":588773,"date":"2026-04-17T00:53:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T00:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/588773\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T00:53:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T00:53:12","slug":"ludvig-aberg-cleans-up-his-game-and-leads-at-hilton-head-with-a-63","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/588773\/","title":{"rendered":"Ludvig \u00c5berg cleans up his game and leads at Hilton Head with a 63"},"content":{"rendered":"

HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. \u2014 Ludvig \u00c5berg swapped out some sloppy mistakes at the Masters with pure iron play at Harbour Town in warm, swirling wind that produced an 8-under 63 for a one-shot lead Thursday in the RBC Heritage.<\/p>\n

\u00c5berg moved ahead of Harris English and Viktor Hovland with an 8-iron to about 15 feet on the back corner of the green on the par-3 17th and made the birdie. He closed with a par, pleasing because he felt that 8-iron confirmed how well he was swinging the club.<\/p>\n

Houston Open champion Gary Woodland<\/a>, Matt Fitzpatrick and Rickie Fowler were in the group of players at 65.<\/p>\n

Masters champion Rory McIlroy skipped this $20 million signature event for the second straight year, having said Harbour Town doesn\u2019t suit him.<\/p>\n

Scottie Scheffler, the runner-up last week at Augusta after a 65-68 finish, had a shocking start. His first tee shot was out-of-bounds<\/a> on the right. He didn\u2019t know out-of-bounds was over there.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was looking like it was going to hit those trees and I guess it flew right through them and then hit path and went out-of-bounds,\u201d Scheffler said. \u201cThumbs up for the start. It was a good bogey.\u201d<\/p>\n

That it was, a 12-foot putt to limit the damage, followed by a par save on the next hole and then it was business as usual in the tougher afternoon conditions for a 68.<\/p>\n

\u00c5berg had a disappointing week at Augusta National by his standards \u2014 a tie for 21st, his first time out of the top 10 in three appearances at the Masters.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like I was playing well but made some silly mistakes that prevented me from having a real chance,\u201d \u00c5berg said. \u201cBut I also felt like in the grand scheme of things, I was swinging it nice, I was moving it nice, so I didn\u2019t have to prepare that much in terms of my golf swing on Monday through Wednesday, and I felt like good golf was in there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The challenge for \u00c5berg and the other 52 players who were in the Masters was to stay sharp inside the ropes on an island that makes this tournament feel like a working vacation.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"RBC<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Scottie Scheffler and Matt Fitzpatrick tee off shortly after 10 locally Friday morning. Here\u2019s a full list of RBC Heritage second round tee times and pairings.<\/p>\n

Hovland is feeling less stressful more because of his swing, instead of the week at the Masters when he made a big run up the leaderboard on Sunday only to catch the wrong gust at the wrong time that led to double bogey on the 15th hole. He still shot 67.<\/p>\n

Hovland doesn\u2019t feel he\u2019s all the way back with his swing, but he found enough signs of progress to believe he is getting close. He played bogey-free for a 64 that featured no birdies on the three par 5s.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole year I\u2019ve been working really hard, and I think now that I\u2019m seeing my game progress and get closer to where I want it to be, I can start to relax a little bit more and focus on kind of the recovery aspect of things,\u201d Hovland said.<\/p>\n

English also played bogey-free for his 64, finishing with a birdie to a front pin over the bunker.<\/p>\n

Davis Love III refurbished the fabled course to restore greens to their original design, but players felt it looked the same. And it played the same \u2014 opportunity from the fairway, trouble otherwise as Scheffler and others discovered.<\/p>\n

Justin Thomas and Tommy Fleetwood each opened with a 76.<\/p>\n

The toughest day belonged to someone who didn\u2019t even play. Brooks Koepka was the first alternate and showed up at Hilton Head in case someone withdrew. That typically means a two-hour wait in the morning, taking a break, and waiting some two hours during the afternoon wave.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Farmers<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Brooks Koepka was set as the first alternate to get into the 2026 RBC Heritage field. If he did get in, it would have triggered 72 holes for Keith Mitchell and Taylor Moore per the Tour\u2019s Returning Member Program.<\/p>\n

Bad news for Brooks \u2014 this signature event has players in twosomes off the first tee, one right after the other. He was at the course about 6:45 a.m. (the first tee time was 7 a.m.) and could not leave until the last group teed off at 2:10 p.m.<\/p>\n

There were three alternates on property \u2014 Keith Mitchell and Taylor Moore \u2014 because if Koepka got in, the stipulation for his return from LIV Golf was two additional players added to the field.<\/p>\n

Morikawa seemed to be the best hope with his back that first went bad at The Players Championship. But he played the Masters with some trepidation and tied for seventh, and he played bogey-free at Harbour Town for a 66.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. \u2014 Ludvig \u00c5berg swapped out some sloppy mistakes at the Masters with pure iron…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588774,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-588773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}