Brace yourself: Two stars return from knee injuries at The RSM Classic

ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. – Michael Thorbjornsen and Ludvig Åberg were not used to this.

Hugely successful amateurs, both had finished No. 1 in PGA TOUR University, the pathway by which top college players go directly to the PGA TOUR. Both had hit the ground running, Åberg winning The RSM Classic a year ago, and Thorbjornsen finishing T2 at the John Deere Classic in July.

Recently, though, as they hit balls side-by-side at TPC Sawgrass, they gave a rueful chuckle at another similarity that was as unplanned as it was unpleasant.

“We both had like matching left knee braces,” said Thorbjornsen, who in cold, windy conditions shot a bogey-free, 8-under 64 at Sea Island’s Plantation Course to tie Maverick McNealy for the lead at The RSM Classic. “It was a little embarrassing, it was kind of funny.”

Well, sort of – until Thorbjornsen decided Åberg had a cooler-looking knee brace.

And what makes a good knee brace?

“The fabric, I guess,” Thorbjornsen said. “If there's a little bit of metal in there for more stability, how tight it is. I don't want to call myself an expert, but I've had two or three knee braces. … The first one I just got at Target and the second one I ordered online.”

Thorbjornsen laughed easily Thursday, for he had made eight birdies, no bogeys. And while several players were sweating their FedExCup number, he is fully exempt for 2025. Oh, and he did not need surgery on his knee after opting to withdraw from last month’s inaugural Black Desert Championship in the middle of the second round.

He’d been doing his pre-round warmup when there was a loud pop in his knee.

“Didn't really bother me too much hitting balls,” he said. “Kind of just felt a little unstable, mostly just felt weird. I thought OK, maybe if I walk a little bit, I'll feel better, it'll get better, but kind of on that first hole I noticed OK, it's kind of a problem to walk.”

It got worse, and Thorbjornsen decided discretion was the better part of valor. He withdrew and went home to try and figure out what he’d done.

“We got an MRI a couple days later and I sprained my ACL and LCL,” he said. “So really glad that nothing was torn. I thought I might have torn my meniscus … we've just been doing rehab and PT for the past three, four weeks now.”

Thursday, he added, was his third day playing without his brace.

Åberg may have had a cooler-looking brace back at TPC Sawgrass, but his return to competition Thursday did not go as well as Thorbjornsen’s. After taking a month off to recover from medial meniscus surgery in September, the world No. 5 shot 3-over 73 on the tougher Seaside Course. The low point was when he lost his tee shot into the native area and triple-bogeyed the 10th hole, at which point he was 5-over par.

“It was hard, obviously it was a rough day,” Åberg said. “It was a lot of rust, I felt like, but I also felt like the good was pretty good but the bad was really bad. A little bit of everything today, but all in all, pretty happy to be back playing golf again.”

Åberg knew there was something wrong with his knee for much of the 2024 season. He withdrew from the Truist Championship in May and played the PGA Championship at hilly Valhalla with a knee brace.

Although fully recovered Thursday, he didn’t have his best stuff.

“There's some technical things that I'm working on in my swing,” he said. “I want to, I guess, load it a little bit better, and that's where that miss comes with the driver. Both times where I put myself in trouble today, it was off the tee.

“If I can fix those things … I think (Friday) will be a little bit nicer,” he added.

For Åberg and Thorbjornsen, healthy again, having the freedom to play again was a sort of victory. As for an actual victory, that wasn’t out of the question, either.