Let's face it, we all have to leave our youth behind us at some point. We can’t do anything about the march of time but, in this great generation game, Bernhard Langer continues to roll back the years. Playing the same kind of patient, diligent, stolid golf now that was his trademark back in his Major-winning pomp, the indefatigable German just keeps on going.
Readers of a certain vintage may recall striding the fairways of Haggs Castle 40 years ago and following the dashing young Bernhard when he won his sixth European Tour title in the Glasgow Classic of 1983. Here in 2023, he is still in the winning habit.
The 65-year-old’s victory in the Champions Tour’s Chubb Classic last Sunday was his 45th on the lucrative over-50s circuit and equalled Hale Irwin’s record. Will Father Time finally catch up with Langer and stop him setting a new benchmark?
No chance. Having won at least once every year on the golden oldies scene since 2007, another Langer win in the near future seems as inevitable as night following day. While cynics claim he is still using the anchored putter, a method that was outlawed in 2016, Langer has always maintained his innocence.
“I couldn’t live with myself if I knew I was breaking a rule,” he once said, and the long-standing accusations and aspersions have failed to dampen the satisfaction of his achievements.
“It’s extremely special because we’ve been talking about it for so long,” said Langer of his record-equalling feat. “When I first came out here [on the Champions Tour], I thought I’d never win 45. It’s a little overwhelming really.”
Langer’s unwavering longevity is a product of a robust fitness regime, a healthy diet and a drooth for competition that is impossible to slake. His spirituality, meanwhile, has been a vital club in the bag since he became a born-again Christian after his first Masters triumph in 1985.
“I wrote a bible verse down and carried it all day just to encourage me,” he said of his path to his latest victory on Sunday.
For Langer, this shimmering sporting career adds lustre to one heck of a life. At the age of just eight, and in a country where golf was the exclusive domain of the newly-rich post-war classes, he turned up at his local club in the Black Forest to offer his urchin’s talents as a caddie. The rest, as they say, is history.
“For a German kid from a village of 800 people and starting as a caddie to do what I’ve done, it takes a lot of people to do that, not just one,” he said of this journey and those who have been a part of it.
Of course, this journey may not have happened at all.
“My whole life is an improbable story,” he said during a sentimental meander in the wake of his record-equalling success at the weekend.
“I should have died as a kid, with an extremely high fever, and the doctors gave up on me. Well, first of all, they told my mother not to have another child. They told her to abort me. She decided not to take the chance of killing herself and me. We all survived.
“To make it just to earn a living was an incredible story, but then to make it to No.1 in the world and to become one of the best players for many years, and then to what happened on the Champions Tour. We all know that, but a lot of stuff happened in those earlier years that some people have no clue about and they were pretty miraculous. Maybe someday we can make a movie about it. It would be pretty cool.”
The way the tireless Langer keeps motoring on, there may be a few more additions to the script yet.
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