Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic <\/p>\n
PINEHURST, N.C. \u2014 Tony Finau has had his first up-close look at Ludvig Aberg this week, grouped with him for the first two rounds of the 124th U.S. Open.<\/p>\n
Suffice it to say he\u2019s impressed.<\/p>\n
Make no mistake: Finau is in contention and focused on his own game as he tries to capture his first career major championship.<\/p>\n
But he\u2019s had a hard time keeping his eyes off of Aberg, the 24-year-old Swede playing in his third career major championship and first U.S. Open.<\/p>\n
Aberg is a player those in the golf know believe is headed for superstardom.<\/p>\n
And what he\u2019s done for the first 36 holes of this U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2 is eye-opening \u2014 seizing the lead at the halfway mark at 5-under.<\/p>\n
Aberg followed his opening-round 66 with a 1-under 69 on Friday and holds a one-shot lead over Bryson DeChambeau, Patrick Cantlay, Thomas Detry and Matthieu Pavon (all 4-under) entering the weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the first time I\u2019ve ever played with him,\u2019\u2019 Finau said. \u201cThe guy is like a machine, from what I saw. I obviously am focused on what I\u2019m doing and playing my game, but he hit a lot of fairways and a lot of greens. He sure makes it look pretty easy.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
As easy as golf can be in the treacherous conditions this golf course is presenting this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen they say it\u2019s the toughest test of golf, I think that\u2019s what you can expect,\u2019\u2019 Finau said. \u201cYou know it\u2019s going to be grueling every day. It doesn\u2019t matter what hole it is, it\u2019s going to be tough out here. So far, I\u2019ve been up for the challenge.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
So, too, has Aberg, who went to Texas Tech, has been a pro for only about a year and has already played on and contributed to a European Ryder Cup victory.<\/p>\n
He, too, finished runner-up at the Masters last April, his first career major championship.<\/p>\n
It has, indeed, been a whirlwind year for Aberg.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes, I have to stop for a little bit and think about how fortunate I am to be able to do this at this level,\u2019\u2019 he said. \u201cTo be able to play these tournaments, to be able to play with the guys that I\u2019ve watched on TV for such a long time is definitely a pinch-me moment.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
The result at Augusta National has done wonders for his confidence.<\/p>\n
\u201cAugusta proved to me that I was able to be in that position, and it was more of a justification of like, \u2018Yeah, you can actually be there and contend on a Sunday,\u2019 \u2019\u2019 Aberg said. \u201cThen obviously the golf course also played very difficult. It demanded a lot of patience and discipline just like this one does. I feel like those experiences that I had back in April, they were great. Hopefully we\u2019ll draw some similarities between those.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Asked which was the most difficult course he\u2019s played before this week, Aberg said, \u201cIt was Pinehurst because I played the U.S. Amateur here a couple years ago.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember it was one of my first experiences coming over and playing a really hard golf course in America, and I was like, \u2018Is this what golf in America is like?\u2019 \u2019\u2019 he recalled. \u201cLuckily it\u2019s not like this every week.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
This U.S. Open has become a war of attrition \u2014just as everyone predicted it would become.<\/p>\n
On the rail here in the horse country of the sand hills is Aberg, closely trailed by DeChambeau, Cantlay, Detry and Pavon. <\/p>\n
Rory McIlroy, who\u2019s bidding to end his 10-year drought without a major championship, is 3-under along with Finau.<\/p>\n
Among the top seven on the leaderboard, only McIlroy and DeChambeau have won a major championship.<\/p>\n
So, there figures to be much more maneuvering and shifting on the volatile leaderboard as the pressure of the weekend mounts and the golf course becomes even more difficult than it\u2019s been for the first 36 holes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe golf course was very difficult. It was a lot firmer than it was yesterday,\u2019\u2019 Cantlay, who held a share of the lead at 5-under after Thursday\u2019s opening round, said. \u201cI think it\u2019s going to be a challenge the rest of the weekend. Exactly what we expected.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic PINEHURST, N.C. \u2014 Tony Finau has had his first up-close look at Ludvig Aberg this week, grouped with him for the first two rounds of the 124th U.S. Open. Suffice it to say he\u2019s impressed. Make no mistake: Finau is in contention and focused<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":123859,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-123858","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123858"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123860,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123858\/revisions\/123860"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}