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Bernhard Langer has less reason than most to lament the constraints of age, but from time to time he feels a hindrance.
In the past year, as I’ve moved toward 65, that’s meant a slight decline on a spreadsheet. “They keep averages on just about everything these days,” he tells Sportsmail.
I saw it with my driving distances. I was at 280 yards the first 10 years on the senior circuit, 50 to 60, but I’m at 275 this year. Age catches you.
Bernhard Langer continues to break records on the PGA Champions Tour for over 50s
You can laugh about it and for good reason. Few in the sport can pull off an Indian summer like a golfer and no golfer has made as much hay as Langer.
It would seem that while his broader profession is changing by the day, burning under the hostilities of the fight between lore and LIV, Langer is a picture of consistency. He’s won heaps in the past and now he wins heaps as the oldest swinger in town on the 50+ PGA Champions Tour.
Last month that meant reworking his own record as the oldest winner of a senior tour event at 65 and next is the barely credible feat of nabbing Hale Irwin as the most dominant figure in tour history.
Irwin won 45 veterans tour titles, the last of which came when he was 61. Langer is 44, winning 11 senior majors in addition to the two Masters crowns and 45 other victories he had on the PGA and European Tour when he was younger. men. As a body of work, with 120 victories around the world from 1980 to 2022, he must rank among the greatest assembled in any sport.
The 65-year-old has celebrated 120 victories around the world between 1980 and 2022
“I never thought I would get close to Hale until a couple of years ago,” Langer says.
‘It’s getting closer and closer, but I’m getting older and older. The younger guys coming out now hit the ball a bit further than I do, but I think there are still plenty of fields where I can win.
“I’ve been shooting my age a couple of times lately and that’s new: I shot 64 on my 64th birthday. The other week I shot a 64 when I was 65.
I don’t know how long I’m going to keep going, but three things have to be there for me: I have to be healthy, it has to be fun, and I need to be successful. If one of them is missing, save the spikes.
The German has won 44 titles, participating in 11 senior majors to go with both Masters crowns.
But none of that has to do with Hale’s record.
It’s an accidental point of symmetry that Langer is once again going after Irwin, who happened to be his opponent on one of the most famous days of his career.
Although Langer was a two-time Masters champion and became golf’s first official World No. 1, the German faces almost daily reminders of the 1991 Ryder Cup, when he rallied from two down with four to play in his singles against Irwin, only to later miss the six footer at 18 that would have retained the trophy for Europe.
“Here we go again, I’m still chasing it, but in a different way,” says Langer (below). That Ryder Cup on Kiawah Island remains etched in Langer’s memory, not only because of the way it ended, but also because of the week’s hostilities, which became known as the ‘War on the Coast’.
The shenanigans included a local radio station giving out the European team’s hotel room numbers, prompting calls at all hours of the night, and the mystery of how Irwin’s sharply-curved punch in the 18th ended remains unsolved. on the street. “Hale and I went back there a few years later and had a company day,” Langer says. None of us know much about it. They told me the ball hit someone and bounced. I didn’t know if maybe a fan kicked it around a bit more, but it ended up in a pretty good place.
Langer played with his 22-year-old son Jason at the PNC Championship in Orlando last week.
‘A lot happened that week and it wasn’t all good. There were headlines about war, which is in very bad taste, and everything was very lively. I think there was also some booing between Paul Azinger and Seve Ballesteros: they didn’t get along. And of course my putt, which comes out from time to time!
But it’s the Ryder Cup. Whatever happens, it’s one of the biggest sporting events and that’s why we love it.’
It’s a solid theory but one that is currently being tested like never before. Entering a Ryder Cup year, golf is in unprecedented turmoil due to the LIV raid, which has left Langer frustrated by the actions of his old rival, Greg Norman, who led the breakaway.
Among other acts of disturbance, one of Langer’s successors as European captain, Henrik Stenson, was poached.
Langer, a 10-cup veteran who also gave reigning European captain Luke Donald his debut, says: ‘I really don’t like it at all. I don’t think it’s good for the game. I think it’s more divisive than anything else.
Langer missed a crucial putt against Hale Irwin that would have retained the Ryder Cup in 1991
‘I can see the argument on both sides where some players are offered so much money that it’s hard to turn them down. But if they decide to go down that path, they can’t wait to come back and have the best of both worlds.”
As with many, Langer saw no need to address the golf’s various shortcomings through such drastic changes.
“I didn’t think it was necessary at all,” he says. ‘If you ask most of my colleagues, they were pretty happy with what they were making and what was going on in a system that was tested over many years. I didn’t think there was a need to drastically change it.
‘Greg says he’s trying to grow the game. I don’t see it happening, not with what he’s doing right now, but the future will tell.
Will. But some uncertainties are easier to resolve than others. liv? That’s a hard one. Langer getting the better of Irwin 31 years later? That’s a safer bet.
Bernhard Langer, Mercedes-Benz ambassador, spoke at the Mercedes Trophy World Final.