Ludvig Aberg aces Sawgrass with 63 to take 2-shot lead at Players as Scheffler narrowly makes cut

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Ludvig Aberg had a dream start that carried him to a 9-under 63 and a two-shot lead Friday in The Players Championship. Scottie Scheffler had a clutch finish, but only to avoid missing the cut.

Aberg was 5 under through his opening four holes and motored his way around the TPC Sawgrass with one amazing shot after another. He chipped in twice, for birdie on No. 4 and for eagle on the par-5 ninth for a 29 to tie the front-nine record on the Stadium Course.

Even on the one chip he muffed, he limited the damage by holing an 8-foot putt for bogey.

A final birdie — the Swede made it look so easy — gave him a two-shot margin over Xander Schauffele, who hit all 14 fairways in his round of 65.

“I think my mind is very good when it’s simple, and when things are very easy, and that’s what I’ve felt like I’ve been able to do over the last couple of weeks,” Aberg said.

He was at 12-under 132 on the TPC Sawgrass he occasionally calls home, though Aberg had not played the Stadium Course this year until a practice round Tuesday. He chose Ponte Vedra Beach as home after finishing at Texas Tech.

The stress came late in the day with Scheffler, the world's No. 1 player who has the longest current cut streak on the PGA Tour at 69. He missed two birdie chances and then had into trouble in the rough on the 14th hole for a bogey. Then, he missed a 30-inch par putt on the par-5 16th.

That put him at 2 over, still having to face the island green and the hardest hole at Sawgrass.

Scheffler found land on the 17th for par. Standing on the 18th tee, he was 14 shots out of the lead and anything but par or better would have sent him home from a tournament on the weekend for the first time since August 2022.

He drilled 3-wood down the middle, hit his approach to 8 feet and made birdie for a 73.

Also making the cut with a few nervous moments was Rory McIlroy, whose back is getting better by the day but whose putter is ailing. McIlroy birdied the par-5 ninth at the end of his 71 to make sure he'd be playing the weekend. He and Scheffler, Nos. 1 and 2 in the world, were at 1-over 145.

Schauffele's lone bogey came on a careless three-putt bogey on the par-3 13th, his fourth hole of the day, when he missed a putt just over 2 feet. The rest of his round was rock solid, and the two-time major champion is starting to build some momentum.

He wasn't aware he hit every fairway until it was mentioned to him.

“Definitely nice to hit all of them, especially on this property,” Schauffele said. “For the most part I felt like I was in control and felt like I was attacking the golf course versus playing defensive.”

Sawgrass allowed for that on a gorgeous day of sunshine, a light wind and greens that were receptive, ideal for scoring on a course that provides low rounds for those who avoided big trouble.

Cameron Young, who contended at the Arnold Palmer Invitational last week, had a 67 and was three shots behind. Young is a big talent who finally broke through for his first PGA Tour title last summer, and then was America's best in a losing Ryder Cup cause in his home state of New York.

The Players has been a mystery to him, though. He has yet to finish in the top 50 the three times in four years that he made the cut. But he was dialed in on a course he described as “tricky.”

“I feel if you’re not decisive, if you’re unsure of what you want to do, it can really kind of rear its head at you,” Young said. “The holes where we’re strictly just trying to get it in the fairway ... I didn’t hit all of them, but I made a bunch of really good golf swings. And I feel like that kind of wins out over here.”

Justin Thomas followed his 79-79 return from back surgery at Bay Hill with a 68-68 start at The Players. He was at 8-under 136, along with Corey Conners (67).

The highlight for Thomas was following a bad miss left of the green on the par-5 11th — the pin was to the left — and hitting a perfect pitch-and-run into the cup for eagle.

“Pretty sick chip,” Thomas said. “Not one I necessarily expect to get up-and-down all the time. But I have pretty good belief in my short game, and when you’re in the fairway, you have a lot more control of the ball. Just trying to visualize it and see it and hit my spot, and luckily the hole got in the way. It was nice to steal one there.”

He played alongside Scheffler and saw him endure the final two holes with the cut at stake. Thomas has been on the cut line, and he knows Sawgrass plenty well.

“If you’re on the cut line and you’re standing on 17, if you hit it in the water, you’re all but done,” Thomas said. “Then the same kind of goes for 18 on the tee shot. It’s every bit as hard as trying to win a golf tournament.”

What he saw from Scheffler was some timing issues, but nothing he found alarming.

“He's still hitting shots that not many people on planet earth can hit in the same rounds,” Thomas said. “It’s just golf. He’s been hitting it pretty much where he wants within like a blanket size for what seems like two or three years. He’s still had a pretty damned good year.”

AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf

Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland reacts to his putt on the 11th green during the second round of The Players Championship golf tournament Friday, March 13, 2026, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Scottie Scheffler chips onto the 11th green during the second round of The Players Championship golf tournament Friday, March 13, 2026, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Cameron Young and his caddie line up a shot on the ninth green during the second round of The Players Championship golf tournament Friday, March 13, 2026, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Xander Schauffele hits off the 10th tee during the second round of The Players Championship golf tournament Friday, March 13, 2026, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Ludvig Aberg of Sweden acknowledges applause from the gallery after sinking his putt on the 11th green during the second round of The Players Championship golf tournament Friday, March 13, 2026, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva started a two-day visit to Spain on Friday when he and his Spanish counterpart Pedro Sánchez met a day before they will gather with other leaders, mostly of small to mid-sized countries, who are concerned with the fate of the democratic order and the rise of the populist far right.

Sánchez and Lula have been outspoken in their criticism of the decision by the U.S. and Israel to attack Iran that has caused energy prices to soar. Both spoke in favor of peace, while not naming U.S. President Donald Trump, who has threatened both with punitive tariffs in the past, during a one-hour news conference after their summit.

“We want to double our efforts to work for peace and for a reinforced multilateral order. While others open wounds, we want to mend them and cure them,” Sánchez told reporters.

Sánchez’s government declared its airspace closed to U.S. planes being used in the Iran war, and said it is not allowing the U.S. to use jointly operated military bases in southern Spain for actions related to the war. Earlier this week, Lula released a video message expressing “deep solidarity” with Pope Leo XIV following public criticisms made by Trump after the pontiff slammed the Iran war.

Lula and Sánchez are among the few progressive leaders who have withstood a shift to the right and remain popular in their countries while defending multilateral agreements, human rights, environmental protections and gender equality — all bugaboos of Trump, Lula's neighbor in Argentina, Javier Milei, and Europe's far right.

The meetings come amid a busy week for Sánchez, who just returned from meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, his fourth trip to Beijing in just over three years.

Lula and Sánchez, along with ministers from their cabinets, signed 15 agreements ranging from trade and satellite connections to the exploitation of rare earths needed for industry when they met inside a former royal palace in Barcelona.

Their bilateral meeting was a prelude for Saturday's double dose of gatherings when Lula and Sánchez confer with other leaders inside a sprawling conference center in Spain’s second city.

“Brazil and Spain are side by side in the trenches together,” Lula said. “We are an example that it is possible to find solutions to problems without giving into the empty promises of extremism.”

In that vein, Lula said that the aim for Saturday was to discuss how “democracy must go beyond just voting and bring real benefits to people’s lives.”

The first gathering on Saturday is the IV Meeting in Defense of Democracy. The event was launched by Brazil and Spain in 2024 as a forum to exchange ideas aimed at combating the “extremism, polarization and misinformation” that undermines participatory democracy, the organizers say. The first two editions of this event were held at the United Nations and the previous one was in Santiago, Chile, last year.

This edition will include the presence of European Council President António Costa, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Colombian President Gustavo Petro, and the leaders of other countries from Uruguay and Lithuania to Ghana and Albania.

“If the president of Mexico and South Africa are coming, that means our group is growing,¨ Lula said about how he sees the tide could be turning to favor progressive and middle-of-the-road political parties.

Sheinbaum’s participation comes after Spain’s King Felipe VI ironed out a longstanding diplomatic dispute regarding Spain’s colonial past when he recently acknowledged the Spanish conquest of the Americas had led to the “abuse” of native peoples.

Many of the leaders from the first event will stay put for the inaugural Global Progressive Mobilization, a gathering of left-leaning politicians and policymakers, being held at the same venue later on Saturday. The format was launched after Sánchez and former Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven, who is now president of the Party of European Socialists political grouping, discussed the idea at a meeting of European Socialists last year.

Sánchez and Lula will both give speeches at the event, which is expected to have 3,000 attendees, including U.S. Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy, and feature round tables dedicated to issues ranging from wage inequality to how to improve election results for progressives.

Pol Morillas, director of the Barcelona-based foreign affairs think tank CIDOB, said that the gatherings are meant to be a show of force by traditional democratic leaders who have seen how the populist far-right has successfully forwarded its messages of anti-migration and economic nationalism through international gatherings.

Morillas also sees the meetings in the context of the speech by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney that shook the Davos economic forum in January on the importance of so-called “middle powers” seeking out new strategies to deal with a world of aggressive superpowers.

Lula, Sánchez and other leaders at the events “share the understanding that the world is not just for the great powers,” Morillas told The Associated Press.

AP writers Megan Janetsky in Mexico City and Mauricio Savarese in Sao Paulo, Brazil, contributed.

Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, right, and Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva review troops during a Spain-Brazil summit in Barcelona, Spain, Friday, April 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)

Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, right, and Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da greet each other during a Spain-Brazil summit in Barcelona, Spain, Friday, April 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)

Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, right, and Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva review troops during a Spain-Brazil summit in Barcelona, Spain, Friday, April 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)

Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, right, and Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva review troops during a Spain-Brazil summit in Barcelona, Spain, Friday, April 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)

Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, right, waves next to Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva during a Spain-Brazil summit in Barcelona, Spain, Friday, April 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)

Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, right, waves nesxt to Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva during a Spain-Brazil summit in Barcelona, Spain, Friday, April 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)

FILE -Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, left, speaks with Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva during their joint statement at Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia, Brazil, March 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)