Langer proving age is just a number
Just when most weekend warriors around his age are piling up injuries on the pickleball court, Bernhard Langer keeps defying the odds of the golf course, not to mention the far more torturous course of aging.
For many of us of a certain hair color (think: silver with highlights of wisdom), Langer is an object of great admiration, a healthy dollop of envy, and, if we’re being honest, a smidgen of hate.
Really, the guy’s just not playing fair, now on the verge of turning 66 and still master of a sport designed to torment every age group, still kicking Father Time’s derriere. C’mon, how’s it possible not to hate a guy like that?
“I’ve got good news,” kidded Langer after his latest win, what was his win of wins. “I’ve got my mother who’s going to be 100 on August 4, so I think I have good genes, and hopefully I’ll be around a few more years.”
Looking fit, trim, tanned, and smiling, or in other words, looking the way he has out there for going on a half-century, Langer last Sunday bagged his record-setting 46th win on the PGA Tour Champions with his triumph at the US Senior Open in Stevens Point, Wis. He eclipsed the mark of 45 held by Hale Irwin.
Think of every great golfer ever to swing a club after age 50, and the German-born Langer, a consistent, mighty spright at 5 feet 9 inches, today stands alone for victories, as well as for dodging the odds that eventually filch the clubs out of the hands of us all.
“Having won more majors on this tour than anybody,” an appreciative Langer mused Sunday, “even Jack Nicklaus or Arnold Palmer or Lee Trevino or Gary Player — you name them all — that’s incredible. And now to add one more at almost age 66. . . ’’
The age thing was definitely top of mind for Langer after the win, no prompting needed from the media corps during his news conference. Date of birth, of course, is a Tour Champions brand. Its events bring legends of the game out for adoring audiences to line up along the ropes, most in the crowd there more to get tiny glimpses of greatness, spot recognizable faces, than to care about whose name is atop the leaderboard.
No one goes to a Paul McCartney concert expecting he’ll cover “Hey Jude” like he did in the late ’60s, take a sad song and make it better. They only hope Sir Paul, now 81, can be somewhere near the pin, finish the round upright, microphone in hand. The same for the Champions.
No sport showcases its elders like golf. In an overall sports-entertainment industry that defines “old” as anyone over mid-30s, golf handsdown does the best job of keeping its old guys on the course, respecting their games and honoring them.
It’s a brilliant lesson in sports marketing, and an overall message that North American culture has all but forgotten over the last half-century.
In golf, no oldster is left behind. In normal life, not so much. “My caddie told me,” noted Langer, “the average age of the US Senior Open winner is 52. And here I am, almost 66.”
It wasn’t hard to detect a sense of disbelief in Langer’s words. Even he seemed yet to have figured out his longevity and sustained success.
“The odds were definitely stacked against me,” Langer said, noting earlier that Americans Steve Stricker and Jerry Kelly (both Wisconsin natives) had fair claim to a home-course advantage, “but I don’t always go by odds or what’s written on paper. The golf ball doesn’t know how old we are — and we do the best we can.”
The golf ball on Sunday also had no way of knowing Langer won the Masters in both 1985 by two strokes (over Seve Ballesteros, Raymond Floyd, and Curtis Strange) and 1993 (four strokes better than Chip Beck). He has been running from tees and greens seemingly forever and a day, not always winning (he regrets falling short at the British Open), and has moved seamlessly and triumphantly into this protracted second phase of his career.
Langer now officially owns the
Old Guys space, and was awarded Sunday with a check of $720,000 for his win. If only Social Security were so kind to all pensioners who spend their sunset days walking around with a stick in their hands.
As the sun faded late Sunday afternoon, Langer knelt down on the Stevens Point lawn and posed for pictures, surrounded by flowers, the US Senior Open’s shiny mug in hand.
“Can somebody help me up?” he said, laboring some to get upright.
Maybe the ball didn’t know his age, but the creaks in his knees knew better. He is now a long drive off the tee from Aug. 27, 1957.
“With what you are doing,” an admiring reporter asked him, after noting he witnessed Langer’s struggle at the photo shoot, “do you feel like an inspiration, and are you human?”
“I’m very human,” he said, a slight smile creasing his face. “I’ve got two bad knees, and it hurts bending down. When I have dinner, and sit for an hour and then get up, it’s hard. It’s been that way for a number of years.”
The aches especially come into play, Langer said, when reading putts. Repeatedly crouching to get the lay of the land tests both knees. Over 18 holes, he figures he crouches 200 times, maybe 1,000 times over the course of a tournament.
“That’s a lot of bending down,” said the oldest, winningest guy on the tour, “and I read that if you go downhill, like from the tee box and downhill, it’s 20 times your body weight. So for easy math, if you’re
200 pounds, it’s 4,000 pounds on your knee joints. Imagine how many times I’ve walked downhill the last 50 years on tour. So the body’s taken a beating, no doubt about it, and I feel it just like everybody else.”
Still here, still kicking, and winning like no one ever has in his age group. The wear, the tear and pain, all just invisible reminders that eventually every round comes to a close.
Bernhard Langer inches toward that end able to say he closed better than them all.