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 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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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

“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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Anthony Kim of 4Aces GC waves to the fans after winning first place during the final round of the LIV Golf Adelaide at Grange Golf Club in Adelaide, Australia Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. (Pedro Salado/LIV Golf via AP)

Scottie Scheffler reacts after missing a putt on the 16th hole at Pebble Beach Golf Links during the final round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament in Pebble Beach, Calif., Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

Chris Gotterup, right, smiles along with caddie Brady Stockton after Gotterup's playoff win on the 18th hole during the final round of the Phoenix Open golf tournament Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Scottsdale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Rory McIlroy, from Northern Ireland, hits toward the second fairway at Pebble Beach Golf Links during the final round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament in Pebble Beach, Calif., Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

Ludvig Åberg, from Sweden, hits from the third tee at Pebble Beach Golf Links during the second round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament in Pebble Beach, Calif., Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

Lawmakers and the White House offered no signs of compromise over the holiday weekend in their battle over oversight of federal immigration officers that has led to a pause in funding for the Department of Homeland Security. A partial government shutdown began Saturday after congressional Democrats and President Donald Trump ’s team failed to reach a deal on legislation to fund the department through September.

Democrats are demanding changes to how immigration operations are conducted after the fatal shootings of U.S. citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Good by federal officers in Minneapolis last month.

Unlike the record 43-day shutdown last fall, the closures are narrowly confined, affecting only agencies under the DHS umbrella, including the Transportation Security Administration, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. But the work of ICE and CBP will mostly continue unabated, thanks to billions in funding from Trump’s 2025 tax and spending cut law.

The latest:

The partial government shutdown began Saturday, with Congress scheduled to be out of Washington until Feb. 23, as Democrats and the White House remain dug in over funding for DHS.

Late Monday, Senate Democrats delivered their latest counteroffer to the White House and Republicans, according to a spokesperson for Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer. No additional details were released.

The move follows a White House counterproposal earlier this month that Schumer dismissed as not being serious, offered in response to Democrats’ own 10-point plan outlining their priorities for a funding agreement.

The pledges will be formally announced when board members gather in Washington on Thursday for their first meeting, he said.

He did not detail which member nations were making the pledges for reconstruction or would contribute personnel to the stabilization force.

Rebuilding the Palestinian territory will be a daunting endeavor. The United Nations, World Bank and European Union estimate that reconstruction of the territory will cost $70 billion. Few places in the Gaza Strip were left unscathed by more than two years of Israeli bombardment.

The ceasefire deal calls for an armed international stabilization force to keep security and ensure disarmament of the militant Hamas group, a key demand of Israel. Thus far, few countries have expressed interest in taking part in the proposed force.

The Oct. 10 U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal attempted to halt a more than 2-year war between Israel and Hamas. While the heaviest fighting has subsided, Israeli forces have carried out repeated airstrikes and frequently fired on Palestinians near military-held zones.

It is not clear how many of the more than 20 members of the Board of Peace will attend the first meeting.

▶ Read more about the Board of Peace and its upcoming meeting

It was the first time Iran has announced the closure of the key international waterway, through which 20% of the world’s oil passes, since the U.S. began threatening Iran and rushing military assets to the region. It marks a further escalation in a weekslong standoff that could ignite another war in the Middle East.

As the talks began, Iran’s state media announced that it had fired live missiles toward the Strait and would close it for several hours for “safety and maritime concerns.”

Iranian state TV later said the talks wrapped up after almost three hours.

Iranian state TV reported earlier that negotiations would be indirect and would focus only on Iran’s nuclear program and not domestic policies.

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to use force to compel Iran to agree to constrain its nuclear program. Iran has said it would respond with an attack of its own. Trump has also threatened Iran over the killing of protesters.

▶ Read more about the talks between Iran and the US

The partial shutdown began Saturday after congressional Democrats and the White House failed to reach a deal on legislation to fund DHS through September.

Congress is on recess until Feb. 23, and both sides appear dug into their positions. The impasse affects agencies such as the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Coast Guard, the Secret Service, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Democrats want changes to how immigration operations are conducted after the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens by federal officers last month. They also want to require immigration agents to wear body cameras and mandate judicial warrants for arrests on private property.

White House border czar Tom Homan said the administration was unwilling to agree to Democrats’ demands that federal officers clearly identify themselves, remove masks during operations and display unique ID numbers.

The work at ICE and CBP goes on unabated because Trump’s tax and spending cut law from 2025 provided billions more to those agencies that can be tapped for deportation operations.

▶ Read more about what’s happening with the shutdown

Trump remembered Jackson in a social media post, calling him a “good man, with lots of personality, grit, and ‘street smarts.’”

The Republican president also described Jackson as “very gregarious -Someone who truly loved people!”

“He loved his family greatly, and to them I send my deepest sympathies and condolences. Jesse will be missed! Trump wrote.

It’s up to each federal agency to designate which of its employees are “essential” or “excepted,” both of which mean the same thing in this case. They keep working during a shutdown, typically without being paid until government funding is restored.

Some examples of “essential” employees are military personnel, airport security screeners and law enforcement officers. There can be a wide range, from positions deemed critical for public safety to those authorized by law to continue even without new funding.

Most of the more than 270,000 people employed by DHS are deemed essential, meaning that they stay on the job even during a shutdown. For the fall 2025 shutdown, more than 258,000 DHS employees were in that category, and about 22,000 — or 5% of the agency’s total employee base — were furloughed.

Other agencies affected are the Secret Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The vast majority of employees at the Secret Service and U.S. Coast Guard will continue their work, though they could miss a paycheck depending on the shutdown’s length.

At FEMA, the shutdown will disrupt the agency’s ability to reimburse states for disaster relief costs. Some workers will be furloughed, limiting the agency’s ability to coordinate with state and local partners. Training for first responders at the National Disaster and Emergency Management University in Maryland will be disrupted.

Essentially, it’s because Trump acquiesced to Democrats’ request that Homeland Security funding be stripped from a broader spending package to allow more time for negotiation over demands for changes to immigration enforcement, such as a code of conduct for federal agents and a requirement that officers show identification. DHS was temporarily funded only through Friday.

The rest of the federal government is funded through Sept. 30. That means most federal programs are unaffected by the latest shutdown, including food assistance, and pay for most federal workers and for service members will continue uninterrupted.

The U.S. Capitol is seen Friday, Feb. 13, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)