Bernhard Langer Keeps Winning on PGA Tour Champions, Even at 64

Hale Irwin, who has the most career PGA Tour Champions victories, says Langer could be 'best senior ever.'

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. — For the second week in a row, Bernhard Langer failed to win a golf tournament that featured the best players in the world age 50 or older.

What’s wrong with the guy?

Such is the testament to how well Langer, who tied for eighth in last week’s Hoag Classic at Newport Beach Country Club, has performed during Act II of his career, the PGA Tour Champions. He has made the remarkable almost routine.

Others have had their runs, dating back to the tour’s inception in the early 1980s. No one, though, has had a run quite like Langer, who has captured 43 events, just two behind Hale Irwin. Langer is 64 years old. As dominant as Irwin was during the late 1990s and early 2000s, he won only three times after turning 60. Langer has won 10 times during that stretch, including last month’s Chubb Classic in Naples, Fla.

No wonder the praise from his peers, and from players who came before him, is so effusive.

“You can make a very strong case that he is probably the best senior golfer to ever play the game,” says Irwin. Added Dave Stockton, another top senior in the 1990s: “It’s phenomenal. The effort he’s put in to stay mentally sharp at his age, with no letup, it’s incomprehensible really.”

So how does Langer do it at such an advanced age? What’s the secret? For starters, he still loves the game and loves to compete, and his work ethic is outstanding.

“Normally, when we win a tournament, we have a couple of beers, relax, take it in,” says Ernie Els. “On Tuesday, we start working a little bit, and on Wednesday, we take it more serious. He’s back at work on Monday morning and that is something to behold.”

Langer didn’t expect to be in this position. His goal when he turned 50 in 2007 was to be one of the leading players and improve his game.

Mission accomplished.

Another important factor is that his body has held up, though, he admits, hardly a day goes by “where I don’t hurt somewhere.”

Of course, let’s not forget Langer’s first career. He won the Masters in 1985 and 1993, and dozens of other tournaments around the globe. In April 1986, he was the first to be officially ranked the No. 1 player in the game. Still, he believes his record in America could have been better.

“I was really playing the world for about 15 years,” Langer says. “People have no idea what kind of strain that puts on your body and your sleep.”

That doesn’t mean he has regrets. “I wanted to see the world, to see different cultures,” he says. “I enjoyed most of it.”

If there’s one word that sums up how Langer feels, it’s gratitude. For the game that has been his life and for the country — he lives in Florida — that has been his home for more than two decades.

“I come from a small village in Germany,” he says, “where nobody really knew about golf, and here I am, traveling the world, playing with kings and queens and some amazing CEOs.”

Langer is also grateful for his annual visit to Augusta National and the Masters. The goal again this year is to make the cut. It won’t be easy. The young players, he says, “are hitting 9-irons into par-4s and they are reaching par-5s that I can’t even smell. If I were to make the cut, that would be incredible.”

Don’t bet against it. Since turning 60, he has made the cut in three of his four appearances. He already holds the record for the oldest player to make it to the weekend there; he was 63 when the Masters, delayed by the pandemic, was held in November 2020.

As for the record held by Irwin, Langer realizes that time isn’t on his side.

“I’ve got to do it soon,” he said. “I’m not going to win out here when I’m 74. It’s not going to get easier as I get older and shorter and there are more young guys coming out that hit it 300 off the tee.”