Login to view embedded media
Winning never gets old for Bernhard Langer. He extended one of the most untouchable records in golf when he won the Charles Schwab Cup Championship.
apnews.com
Bernhard Langer and his 18 straight years of winning is among golf’s untouchable records: Analysis
Winning doesn’t get old. Neither, apparently, does Bernhard Langer.
In a year when Scottie Scheffler delivered a level of dominance not seen since Tiger Woods and Xander Schauffele won two majors, when Nelly Korda tied an LPGA record by winning five straight times and Lydia Ko got into the LPGA Hall of Fame by winning Olympic gold, Langer finished his year with a feat as impressive as any, if not more.
Winless for the first time since the 67-year-old Langer became eligible for the PGA Tour Champions in 2007, he was down to the final tournament on a Phoenix Country Club course where he had never finished within five shots of the winner.
“One more putt,” caddie Terry Holt told him on the 18th green, and Langer holed a 30-foot birdie putt for a 66 — his third straight day shooting his age or lower — for a one-shot victory in the Charles Schwab Cup Championship.
That makes it 18 consecutive years with at least one win on the 50-and-older circuit, where time is the greatest adversary. No other league has a shorter shelf life for success. For every year that skills deteriorate, a new batch of younger players (relatively speaking) arrive.
Consider this: The year Langer joined the PGA Tour Champions in 2007, Padraig Harrington won the first of his three major championships. Langer finished 10 shots ahead of the Irishman on Sunday.
The record for consecutive years winning on the PGA Tour is 17, held by Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus. They were in their 40s when the streak ended, not pushing 70.
“The commitment, the dedication and desire to compete at a high level blows my mind,” said Mark O’Meara, a runner-up to Langer in the German’s first Champions win in 2007. “A lot of things happen in sport. I understand what Tiger did, what Nicklaus did, Palmer, all the greats that come before us. But what this man has done for 18 years is amazing. Forget the money. Just to have the desire and will.
“I don’t see it happening again. I truly don’t.”
O’Meara, who now lives in Las Vegas, wouldn’t get very good odds of this record being broken.
It belongs among the untouchable record in golf, just shy of Byron Nelson winning 11 tournaments in a row on the PGA Tour in 1945, probably greater than Woods making 142 consecutive cuts over seven years.
Langer set the record for oldest winner on the PGA Tour Champions in 2021 when he was 64. He has broken his record five times since then, most recently on Sunday. He defied more than age this year.
.
.
.
continued
