Bernhard Langer continues his streak of longevity records on the PGA Tour Champions. A real scarecrow of the American senior circuit reserved for people aged 50 and over, the German has joined Hale Irwin in the number of tournaments won but does not intend to stop there!
By winning this Sunday at 65 in the Chubb Classic with cards of 64 70 and 65, for a total of 17 strokes under par at Tiburon GC, Bernhard Langer joined Hale Irwin in the pantheon of players with the most victories on the PGA Tour Champions.
This 45th success, three strokes ahead of Steve Stricker and Padraig Harrington, however, risks not being the last for the tireless German record hunter and whom nothing seems to be able to stop. In 2021 Langer became the oldest tournament winner at the Dominion Energy Charity Classic.
It was his 42nd title on the PGA Tour Champions, a record he has now broken three times! Langer won his first professional tournament at the age of 17 in Refrath near Cologne[1] and then started his professional career in 1976 as a golf instructor at the Augsburg-Bobingen/Burgwalden golf club.
As a playing pro, he won the German Golf Instructors Championship in Stuttgart in 1979 on the course of the Stuttgart Golf Club Solitude e.V., where he also won the Lufthansa German Open in 1982 and the American Express, the national championship, in 1985.
To the surprise of all experts, he won his first major European tournament in Chepstow, Wales, in 1980. For many golf fans, he became immortal in 1981 when the ball landed high up in the fork of an ash tree on hole 17 at the Fulford golf tournament.
Langer didn’t take the penalty stroke and, to the laughter of the spectators, climbed up the tree and chipped the ball onto the green. Physically weakened by this, he missed his next putt, but then holed and saved his second place with a bogey.
A plaque commemorating this curiosity adorns the tree today. His big break came with his first major title, winning the Masters on April 14, 1985 in Augusta (Georgia, USA. He was the first German to receive the green winner’s jacket.
In 1986, Langer was the first number 1 in the newly created golf world rankings. In 1993 he was able to repeat his victory in Augusta when he won his second major tournament. In 2006, alongside Marcel Siem, he won the unofficial World Team Championship in Barbados for the second time (16 years after his first historic victory, back then with Torsten Giedeon).
Since 2007 (after his 50th birthday) Langer has been playing on the North American Champions Tour (called Senior PGA Tour until 2002) for professional golfers over 50, which he won straight away. He also finished first in the Champions Tour money list in 2008 and 2009 and was named Best Player in both years (also Best Newcomer in 2008). In 2010 he won both the Senior British Open and the Senior US Open on two consecutive weekends.
