A cracked driver in the middle of a round no longer puts a pro golfer at an advantage. It did before the 2026 season. Matt Fitzpatrick experienced it during the 2024 BMW Championship. Back then, he had to be answerable to the tournament officials if he wanted his driver changed. Even then, the driver would have needed to get picked up from the locker room. But Ludvig Aberg didn’t have to jump through such hurdles at Pebble Beach.

As revealed by Ben Parsons on Togay’s Golfer, “Ludvig Aberg becomes first PGA Tour star to advantage of new golf rule.”

Aberg took advantage of the Model Local Rule G-9, which allowed him to change his driver. He had cracked the club on the 18th hole, his ninth hole of the third round in the 2026 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

According to the rule, players are allowed to change their drivers as long as there are significant caveats that make it impossible to play with them. They still need to confirm the same with the rules officials to validate the replacement.

However, unlike in the past, the caddie wouldn’t need to fetch the replacement driver from the locker. The new rule allowed pros to carry a second driver in their golf kit in such situations.

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Aberg’s caddie, Joe Skovron, shared his thoughts on the situation: “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 part) in the locker.”

“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 told Associated Press.

As the Swedish pro’s caddie mentioned, he didn’t need to waste time arranging the second driver. Aberg took advantage of the circumstances and continued playing the round as if nothing had happened.

Unfortunately, one of Aberg’s peers recently experienced a drawback of it, giving him more than one reason be envious of the Swedish pro.

Not everyone has the same luck as Ludvig Aberg

Recently, Jordan Spieth expressed his envy towards Ludvig Aberg because of his natural swing. After the event at Pebble Beach, the three-time major winner will have one more reason to feel jealous of the golfer junior to him.

While playing the 2025 Hero World Challenge, Spieth was also put in the same situation as Aberg. He, too, had cracked his driver and was looking for a replacement. However, two things didn’t play in his favor.

Firstly, he couldn’t convince the rules official that the driver was damaged enough to warrant a replacement.

Secondly, as Skovron mentioned, the rule of the second driver carried in the golf bag only came into effect in 2026. So even if Spieth’s plea was accepted, he and his caddie would have had to wait to receive a replacement driver from the locker room to play with it.

Neither of the situations played in his favor. He finished at T19 in the tournament with a score of even par. Not that Aberg did any better as he finished at T37 at Pebble Beach.