Langer’s better at getting older
NOTEBOOK
PEABODY — Bernhard Langer is the epitome of German engineering and has only gotten better as he puts more miles on the engine.
Langer, 59, had a stretch from 19802002 of finishing in the top 30 of the European Tour’s Order of Merit each year sans one, appeared in 10-of-11 Ryder Cups between 1981-2002 (1999 in Brookline the exception) and won the Masters twice, in 1985 and ’93.
Despite those lofty credentials, it has been since he turned 50 that Langer has really dominated his peers. Since joining the Champions Tour in 2007, Langer has won 32 times, including a record nine majors, topping Jack Nicklaus’ mark of eight at the Senior PGA Championship last month after tying the Golden Bear the previous week at the Tradition. Langer has finished atop the money list every year since his first full season in 2008, outside of ’11, when left thumb surgery limited him to 14 events.
“Besides that, things have been pretty good,” Langer said yesterday at Salem Country Club ahead of the U.S. Senior Open.
The physical regimen has changed as he has aged, with less time on the range and more time stretching and resting. And he puts the clubs down now and then to get back to his family. He did not play at the Champions Tour event in Wisconsin last weekend to attend an in-laws wedding.
“Years ago, I might have missed the wedding and played the golf tournament,” Langer said. “It’s a different outlook.”
One thing that has never changed, when he sticks the tee in the ground, Langer is there to win.
“Maybe I was born with motivation,” he said. “I don’t know. I’ve never had an issue with motivation. If I’m going to enter a golf tournament, I want to give it my best and do my best.”
It may be what separates him from his competitors.
“Some guys just don’t have that drive,” he said. “They’ve done it for 40 years or 30 years or whatever and they’d rather do other things. They don’t want to put the hours in to work on their fitness or to work on their flexibility, to even work on their golf game as hard as they probably should.”
Langer said he would just as soon pack it up and call it a career when he doesn’t feel like he has a chance to win at this level.
With two wins in as many majors already this year, a win at Salem Country Club would put him 60 percent of the way toward the Super Slam.
“No, there is no extra pressure,” Langer said. “I just take it like it any other tournament and love to play well and be in contention on Sunday. Sure, it would be awesome to get three in a row but there’s no real extra pressure for that.”
Doyle a local at locale
Growing up in Norwood, hockey was the game for Allen Doyle. He played it at Catholic Memorial and his talents on the ice got him a partial scholarship to Vermont’s Norwich University.
Even though he wasn’t the player yet that he turned into, golf also helped him at Norwich as he earned a Francis Ouimet Scholarship for his work at Spring Valley Country Club.
An amateur for years, Doyle finally turned pro in 1995 and immediately won three Nationwide Tour events including the Tour Championship. Success came quickly when he joined the seniors at 50, with four wins in his first full season in 1999, including the Senior PGA Championship.
Doyle is the third and last person to successfully defend the U.S. Senior Open championship, winning in 2005 and ’06. The second title made him the oldest champion in the event at 58.
“You’re recognized a little different, whether it be the players in the last couple of days calling you champ, it isn’t so much they just use that word,” Doyle said. “There seems to be something behind it. So it has that meaning to it and it has that respect to it, and I take more out of that than I would, let’s say, the banner and your name in lights.”
This week, Doyle will play in his first U.S. Senior Open since 2012, as he has been spending more time running Doyle’s Golf Center in LaGrange, Ga.
Doyle is one of four players in this year’s field to have also played in the 2001 U.S. Senior Open, won by Bruce Fleisher, at Salem CC. After opening with a 78 back in 2001, Doyle closed with three rounds in red numbers to finish at 2-over 282 and just 2 shots back.
“I had a great experience other than that first round,” he said.
Spieth impresses Watson
Tom Watson was certainly a fan of last weekend’s PGA Travelers Championship in Cromwell, Conn., where Jordan Spieth hit a tree with his drive, dumped his second shot into the bunker and holed out for a win on the first playoff hole.
Watson’s take on Spieth’s recovery was to call it a “Watson birdie” and then added a “Seve ( Ballesteros) birdie.”
“It doesn’t matter what you did off the tee, it’s over and done with,” Watson said. “Let’s see what we can do from here.”