So much for Bernhard Langer easing back into PGA Tour Champions life.
So much for Bernhard Langer easing back into PGA Tour Champions life.
After tearing his left Achilles tendon while playing pickleball on Feb. 1, Langer returned to action just three months later at the Insperity Invitational in Houston in early May.
Now, less than a month from beating those odds, the 66-year-old is at it again, this time challenging for a title at the Principal Charity Classic in Des Moines, Iowa.
In just his fourth start since his return, Langer used a smart finish on the renovated Wakonda Golf Club to finish the day with a 63 and sits at 13 under after the first two rounds of the event. It’s the 15th time he has shot his age or better on the Champions Tour. He’s one stroke back of Ernie Els and Rod Pampling and tied with Stephen Ames for third. David Duval, Vijay Singh and Kevin Sutherland are two off the pace and in the hunt.
And while the changes have modernized the course, it’s also made it more difficult for players like Langer.
“The way they renovated it, it’s even more of a bomber’s paradise. Or it wasn’t before,” Langer said. “Before it was the type of course where a Jerry Kelly or somebody that drove it really straight, Joe Durant, those type of players. Balls coming out of the rough is not easy here, but now they’ve — like I’m looking here at No. 10 and No. 8, the biggest fairway in the world, and 18, the long guys can drive the green. Someone like me, I drove it as good as I could just to get it over the bunker, things like that. They can reach all the par 5s, I struggle to reach some of them.
“So length is always important, but yeah, this used to be about precision and it’s a little bit less about it but still important.”
Either way, Langer is right in the thick of things heading into the final round, and a victory would give him 47 on the PGA Tour Champions. Due to injuries and other reasons, Langer hasn’t won since the 2023 U.S. Senior Open, when he edged Steve Stricker by two strokes at SentryWorld in Stevens Point, Wisconsin.
“I still hit some poor shots, especially when I’m in awkward stances,” he said. “The feet are high or low or sidehill, downhill, my balance isn’t there because the foot that was operated on just doesn’t have the support or the flexibility to stabilize my swing and my weight during the swing. Therefore, I hit it thin, I hit it fat, whatever. Anything can happen now.
“I tried a driver yesterday off an uphill lie and I just about topped it almost. I’m not there, but I’m grateful I can use a cart to get me around.”
Tears were welling in his eyes as this columnist wrote about the end.
BENTON HARBOR, Mich. — When the final putt dropped in the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship at the Golf Club of Harbor Shores on May 26 — ironically, the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend and won by England’s Richard Bland — there might have been a few tears running down cheeks of golfers and golf fans in the Michigan and Indiana region known as Michiana.
You can count mine among them. Tears are already welling in my eyes as I write.
On and off since 1963 — with some breaks in between — driving any compass point in Michiana into southwestern Michigan’s glorious fruit belt to watch this grand game has been a relaxing and enjoyable experience.
Watching future greats play in the Western Amateur at Point O’Woods Golf & Country Club near Millburg and then seeing many of them return many years later to compete in the Senior PGA at Harbor Shores in Benton Harbor — two great courses in Berrien County separated by a little under eight miles — have provided wonderful bookends to almost a half-century of golf memories.
It doesn’t matter whether the trip lasted 42 miles from South Bend via M-140 and then down Territorial Road into Millburg and a short jaunt north up Roslin Road to Point O’Woods, the tree-lined design of noted architect Robert Trent Jones Sr. that was home to 41 Western Amateur championships, 38 in a row beginning in 1971.
The same is also true of the 40-mile drive from South Bend via the St. Joseph Valley Parkway (U.S. 31) through acres and acres of farmlands to Harbor Shores in Benton Harbor. Situated on reclaimed Whirlpool Corporation properties through which the Paw Paw River meanders and with three holes built along the dunes of Lake Michigan, this Jack Nicklaus design hosted its sixth and final Senior PGA May 23-26. Whirlpool, parent of Kitchenaid, announced they would not continue their sponsorship of the event.
Now, our future golfing springs and summers will never be the same. To paraphrase “Caddyshack” greenskeeper Carl Spackler (actor Bill Murray): “Au Revoir, Golfers.”
My first visit to Point O’Woods occurred during the “Sweet Sixteen” weekend of the 1975 tournament when another assigned staffer at the Niles Daily Star could not work. The winner was the late Andy Bean, a 6-foot-4 recent Florida graduate who, we all learned, once bit the cover off a golf ball after three-putting during a college match against Jay Haas.
Bean, who beat Randy Simmons 1 up for the Western title, enjoyed a memorable PGA Tour career as did others from the “Sweet Sixteen” that year — Peter Jacobsen, Mike Reid and Curtis Strange. Another “Sweet Sixteen” member that year was Fred Ridley, a Gators teammate of Bean who later won the U.S. Amateur, became a lawyer and is now the chairman of Augusta National and the Masters.
The late Tom Weiskopf won the first Western Amateur at the Point in 1963, and Strange’s 1974 “double” — he won 72-hole stroke-play medal before winning four 18-hole matches for the overall title — followed Ben Crenshaw’s 1973 title sweep.
Tom Weiskopf, shown here at the Augusta National Golf Course during the 1983 Masters, won the first Western Amateur in 1963. Mandatory Credit: Lannis Waters -The Augusta Chronicle via USA TODAY NETWORK
That “double” would later be matched by Rick Fehr (1982), Scott Verplank (1985), Phil Mickelson (1991), Joel Kribel (1996), Steve Scott (1999), Bubba Dickerson (2001) and Danny Lee, whose 2008 “double” coincided with the end of the Point’s 38-year run. When the Western Golf Association returned in 2019, Canadian Garrett Rank, a 31-year-old NHL referee, beat Daniel Wetterich, 3 and 2, for the title.
Mickelson, an Arizona State golfer who won on the PGA Tour earlier in 1991, completed his Western Amateur “double” by beating 19-year-old University of Texas up-and-comer Justin Leonard, 2 and 1. Leonard, who later won the 1997 Open Championship and made the winning putt for Capt. Crenshaw’s winning 1999 U.S. Ryder Cup team, completed a Western Amateur “double” of a different sort – back-to-back titles, matching Hal Sutton’s effort in 1979 and ’80. Leonard won titles in 1992 and ’93, and in 2018, he was named a special honorary member of the Point.
In 1994, the Western Amateur was won by an 18-year-old recent high school graduate – Eldrick Tont “Tiger” Woods, who then was told by father Earl to sign autographs for the dozens of African-American youngsters who followed him.
You just never knew who you would encounter walking “The Point.” In 1991, NBA great Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls was paired for the first two rounds with Mickelson and local Chris Smith of Rochester, Ind., a former Western Junior champion. Baseball home-run smasher Mark McGwire played the first two rounds of the 2004 tournament with current PGA Tour member Kevin Kisner.
And, yes, that was former Masters champion Craig Stadler, a 1973 “Sweet Sixteen” qualifier, carrying the bag for son Kevin during the hot and humid days of the 1998 tournament.
Johnny Miller, then NBC’s lead golf analyst, shared his microphone skills for WSJM radio’s broadcasts during son Andy’s “Sweet Sixteen” championship matches in 1997 and ’99.
And who can forget the 1985 sighting of a Golden Bear? Nicklaus, then on a diet, flew up daily from Dublin, Ohio, to watch son Jackie play that year. While in Millburg, Jack cheated on his diet, enjoying the homemade butter pecan ice cream sold by the first tee. The following spring, Nicklaus donned the Masters green jacket for a sixth time.
Jack Nicklaus smiles after teeing off on the fourth hole during the Champions for Change Golf Challenge at Harbor Shores Golf Club in Benton Harbor, Mich., Aug. 10, 2010.
Nicklaus later returned to design Harbor Shores, and for its grand opening on Aug. 10, 2010, he invited Miller, Tom Watson and Arnold Palmer to tour the course for a charity skins event. When Miller pulled out a wedge instead of a putter on the multi-tiered, 10,500-square foot green on the 10th hole to execute his remaining 102 feet to the pin, Nicklaus stomped down the hill, dropped a ball and, without lining it up, putted it up the terrain and into the cup — much to the delight of Palmer, Watson and the more than 5,000 fans in attendance.
Two years later, England’s Roger Chapman totaled 13-under 271 to beat John Cook, Hale Irwin, Bernhard Langer and others for the first Senior PGA Championship title at Harbor Shores. In 2014, Scotland’s Colin Montgomerie totaled the same score for a four-stroke victory over Watson, who edged out Langer and Jay Haas by two more.
In 2016, Rocco Mediate of Greensburg, Pa., shot 19-under 265 to beat Montgomerie by three strokes and Langer and Brandt Jobe by five, reinforcing Mediate’s love affair with southwestern Michigan golf courses that dates back to 1983; That year he pre-qualified for the Western Amateur at Dowagiac’s Hampshire Country Club and then made the 36-hole cut. The following summer, Mediate would lose the final to John Inman with both golfers wearing plus-fours.
England’s Paul Broadhurst would match Mediate’s winning total in 2018 to beat Tim Petrovic by four shots as nine golfers, including Montgomery, Miguel Angel Jimenez, Jerry Kelly and Scott McCarron, shot 10-under or better for four rounds.
Two years after the 2020 return to Harbor Shores was canceled by the COVID-19 pandemic, New Zealand’s Steven Alker shot an 8-under 63 in the final round for a 16-under 268 total that was three strokes better than Canada’s Stephen Ames and six ahead of Langer.
Steve Stricker, a 1989 “Sweet Sixteen” qualifier at the Western Amateur, was expected to play in that 2022 Senior PGA after captaining the U.S. Ryder Cup team to victory in 2021 over the European team captained by Ireland’s Padraig Harrington. But Stricker tested positive for COVID-19 and had to withdraw.
Last year at the Senior PGA held at Fields Ranch East in Frisco, Texas, the 57-year-old Stricker and Harrington renewed their rivalry as players, shooting 18-under 270s before Stricker won his sixth senior major title on the first playoff hole. The Top 10 included Alker, Jimenez, Stewart Cink, Y.E. Yang, Darren Clarke and Vijay Singh. All of them — and many others from past Western Amateurs at the Point — were in this year’s farewell field at Harbor Shores.
“He’s dedicated to golf and he wants to come back. He just needs to get comfortable again playing in competition.”
Argentina’s Angel Cabrera’s comeback is officially ready for takeoff as the two-time major winner secured a visa last week.
Charlie Epps, his longtime coach, confidante and friend, confirmed that Cabrera can now travel to the U.S. – and plans to move permanently to Houston – and resume competing on PGA Tour Champions.
Cabrera, 54, served 30 months in prison in Brazil and Argentina for domestic violence and other lesser charges. His visa expired in January and according to Epps, the American Embassy in Buenos Aires made him take a series of psychological tests.
“That was the delay,” Epps said. It prevented him from competing in April in the Masters, where he is eligible as the 2009 champion, but it should pave the way for his return next year.
“Angel certainly is one of our great champions,” Masters chairman Fred Ridley said at a press conference in January. “As we all know, he has been unable to participate in the Masters the last couple of years due to legal issues. Presently we have been in constant contact with Angel’s representatives. He presently is not able to enter the United States. He doesn’t have a visa, and I know that that process is being worked through. We certainly wish him the best of luck with that, and we’ll definitely welcome him back if he’s able to straighten out those legal issues.”
Cabrera has made a few starts here and there since his release from jail but can now begin a full comeback in earnest. Cabrera was reinstated on the PGA Champions Tour and the PGA Tour in December last year. He played in the Trophy Hassan II, a Champions Tour event in Morocco in February, and finished T-27. He missed the cut at the Argentine Open, a Korn Ferry Tour-sanctioned event, in March. Most recently in May, he played in Barbados in a Legends Tour event, formerly known as the European Seniors Tour, and finished T-11. His last competitive tournament in the U.S. was at the Pure Insurance Championship at Pebble Beach in September 2020.
As a past winner on the PGA Tour, Cabrera is a PGA Tour Champions member, but his entry into a field is dependent upon how the field is filled, according to a spokesperson for PGA Tour Champions. As a major championship winner, he is eligible for both restricted and unrestricted sponsor exemptions, and there is no limit to the number of sponsor exemptions he can receive. He also is exempt to compete in an event qualifier as a past champion on the PGA Tour. An email to his longtime manager Manuel Tagle asking for Cabrera’s future plans wasn’t returned.
Cabrera is entered into the next two senior events, American Family Insurance Championship and Dick’s Open. He’s currently on the alternate list for both. Anything past that would be too far to forecast for player commitments.
“When I talked to him down there, he had really grown up, he understood what life is all about and that he had really made an ass of himself,” Epps said in a phone interview. “He’s dedicated to golf and he wants to come back. He just needs to get comfortable again playing in competition. I want him to win the U.S. Senior Open.”
Like the Masters, that quest will have to wait until next year. The deadline for entry into the U.S. Senior Open was May 1 at 5 p.m. ET and Cabrera failed to file for entry.
In 2021, Bland won his first DP World Tour event in his 479th start.
BENTON HARBOR, Mich. — After putting poorly for the first three rounds of 84th KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship, England’s Richard Bland put his putter “Gamer” on notice.
Sunday at Harbor Shores, “Gamer” delivered, and Bland, a member of LIV Golf who was in the field on a special exemption from the PGA of America, shot the day’s best round at the par-71, 6,744-yard Jack Nicklaus designed course by Lake Michigan — an 8-under 63 — to capture his debut senior major by three strokes.
The 51-year-old Bland, who earned $630,000 with the victory over Australian lefthander Richard Green, was thinking about changing putters after he shot a three-over 74 Saturday. Instead, he kept “Gamer” in his bag, and it helped him survive an 80-minute weather delay and an 83-player field which produced 36 under-par rounds.
The 6-foot-4 Green, who shared the opening round lead with Bland at seven-under 64, produced a final-round 65 that included a pair of back-nine eagles at Nos. 12 and 15, his fourth and fifth of the tournament. Green was one stroke ahead of fellow lefthanded countryman Greg Chalmers, who closed with a 68. Finishing tied for fourth at 12-under 272 were Australia’s Scott Hend (66) and low senior PGA of America golf professional Jason Caron (66) of the Mill River Club in Oyster Bay, New York.
“I was so frustrated when I finished yesterday that I actually went out and practiced with the other putter I brought,” Bland said. “I was literally going to use it. That was it. But I got here a little early this morning and did probably an hour on the putting green with my ‘gamer’ just to kick it up the backside, so to speak.”
Message delivered, mission accomplished. Bland made eight birdie putts and one eagle putt — an eight-footer at the 514-yard 15th hole — to offset two bogeys, one a three-putt on the 192-yard 13th hole.
The victory meant even more for Bland, who dedicated it to his brother Heath, who has been battling cancers for the past year. “I’m just so pleased that I could do this for him,” said Bland, who got emotional on the 18th green after his victory. “Like I said, this doesn’t feel like it’s my tournament. It’s his.”
Possibly Bland’s biggest made putt of the day came at the 433-yard 14th after Chalmers had rolled in a 40-foot birdie to go to 15-under. Bland followed with an eight-footer to save par and remained a stroke behind Chalmers going to the 15th tee.
“To Richard’s credit, he iced it,” said the 50-year-old Chalmers, who bogeyed his final three holes. “He stepped up on the next hole (15), hit two beautiful shots on the par-5 and made eagle. Then the second shot he hit on 16 was world-class. To be able to be in the right rough and turn it into that pin, (Bland) won this golf tournament. He played beautiful golf today.”
Bland’s eagle putt at 15 — set up by a good drive and “the best 4-iron of my life” — allowed him to go to the 419-yard 16th with a one-shot lead over Chalmers, whose approach to the hole was long and left into dense rough. With storm clouds quickly approaching and with Bland’s own approach already in birdie range, Chalmers whiffed his third shot.
“I read the lie pretty sitting down,” Chalmers said, “so I went with speed and an open face, and I actually went straight underneath the golf ball. I just misread that lie.”
Chalmers got his fourth shot on the green and then waited 80 minutes through the delay before making his bogey putt. He then failed to get up and down out of a bunker at the par-3 17th, allowing Bland to take a three-stroke lead to the 18th tee.
“Even though I didn’t finish as strongly as I would have liked, I take solace that I was three-over at the start of the tournament on Thursday and here I am, finished third outright,” said Chalmers, who doesn’t have a full exemption on the PGA Champions Tour. His $238,000 third-place check will make it easier for him Tuesday when he attempts to qualify for the 54-hole Principal Charity Classic in Des Moines, Iowa.
Green’s first of two eagles came on the par-4, 423-yard 12th where he hit “half an 8-iron” in from 139 yards. The other came on the 15th where he hit a 4-iron over the Paw Paw River to 12 feet and sank the putt for his fifth eagle of the week.
“I can’t remember the last eagle I made prior to this week,” Green said. “Five in a week — just awesome. Hey, somehow I got the score down and finished second.”
Green was in the next-to-last pairing of the day with Caron, who started with two birdies and finished with five in a front-side 31 and added a sixth birdie at the par-5 10th to get to within one shot of the lead at 13-under.
“I was so impressed with his game,” Green said of the 51-year-old Caron, who settled for a 66 with seven birdies and shared fourth with Australia’s Hend (66) at 12-under 272
“Being able to come out here and compete definitely shows me that I can hang still a little bit,” said Caron, who competed on the PGA Tour in 2000 and 2003 before settling in as a club professional.
Finishing a stroke behind Caron and Held at 11-under 273 were American Chris DiMarco (69) and South Africa’s Ernie Els, who shared the third-round lead with Chalmers at 10-under but managed only a final-round 70. Finishing in solo eighth was defending Senior PGA champion Steve Stricker, who closed with a 68 for 274, one stroke better than South Africa’s Retief Goosen (67) and American Stewart Cink (69).
Stricker is mostly sticking to the old tried and true, and not getting hung up on the latest and greatest.
Steve Stricker withdrew from the PGA Championship last week to focus on this week’s KitchenAide Senior PGA, an event where he will be the defending champion.
He’ll be among the field of 156 golfers at Harbor Shores Resort, Benton Harbor, Michigan, which is hosting for the sixth time since 2012.
Earlier this year, Stricker, who has seven senior majors among his 17 PGA Tour Champions wins, ran into some equipment issues at TPC Sawgrass.
“I broke my driver at the Players Championship, so that’s been a little bit of a bugaboo,” he said Wednesday ahead of the Senior PGA. “Then I said, you know what? Maybe it’s a good time to change some irons, so I tested some irons, but I went back to, at Regions a couple weeks ago, I went back to the ones that I’ve been playing the last four, five years, so that seemed to be a little bit better.”
While he has the older irons in his bag, he’s sticking with the driver.
“Hitting the driver nice. It’s a new Titleist driver that I am hitting,” he said, later adding that he paired it with his older V2 shaft. “That seems to be going pretty good, so I feel like I finally got my equipment figured out.”
Our defending Champion Steve Stricker shares what happened when he tried it make the putt. pic.twitter.com/f3lkUTYioJ
— KitchenAid Senior PGA Champ (@seniorpgachamp) May 22, 2024
So aside from the new driver head, Stricker is sticking to the old tried and true, and not getting hung up on having the latest and greatest.
“I’ve got a putter that’s 23 or 24 years old, 3-wood that’s 15 years old, you know, and utility club, yeah, I just have never really, once I find something I like and I know that it works, I got confidence in, it’s hard for me to change. It’s kind of a process,” he explained.
“I tried to do it with some irons the last month or so. It’s just hard. You have one idea what the ball should do and then when you put a new club in your bag is does something different. It’s about getting used to, and sometimes I just don’t want to even take the time to get used to it just because I know that what I’ve been playing works and I like the look of it and all that kind of stuff. So it’s been hard for me to change over the years.”
Look and feel clearly have a lot to do with it.
“I put some new stuff in there I’m like, that just doesn’t feel right. Then I put my old stuff in there and I’m like, that’s the way it’s supposed to feel.
“I go back and forth, but typically end up with my old stuff back in my hands again.”
A reminder, this is the only major that allows the devices.
The PGA of America announced back in 2021 that it would allow the use of distance-measuring devices in its three professional major championships – PGA Championship, KPMG Women’s PGA Championship and KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship – starting that year.
The devices made their first appearance at the 2021 PGA Championship at Kiawah Island Golf Resort’s Ocean Course in South Carolina.
“We’re always interested in methods that may help improve the flow of play during our Championships,” said Jim Richerson, then the president of the PGA of America. “The use of distance-measuring devices is already common within the game and is now a part of the Rules of Golf. Players and caddies have long used them during practice rounds to gather relevant yardages.”
The PGA of America became the first major body to allow the devices in all its premier professional events. There had been speculation for years that such devices might help speed play, as players and caddies don’t have to walk off yardages to sprinkler heads and other fixed positions.
The United States Golf Association’s Rules of Golf have allowed the use of laser rangefinders and GPS devices in casual play and tournaments since 2006, but a local rule allowed a tournament committee to ban such devices. At elite professional levels of play, the devices still have not been embraced for competition rounds, though they have been allowed in the U.S. Amateur since 2014. They are still not allowed during competition rounds at PGA Tour events or at the U.S. Open and British Opens.
In keeping with Rule 4.3a (1), the devices allowed can report only on distance and direction. Devices that calculate elevation changes or wind speeds, or that suggest a club for a player as well as other data, will not be allowed.
Wyndham Clark checks the distance to the 11th hole during the second round of the 2024 PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club. (Photo: Clare Grant/Louisville Courier Journal)
The devices aren’t new for the pros, many of whom already use laser rangefinders and GPS in practice rounds.
Many laser rangefinders provide information on elevation changes and “plays-like” distances. Most of those devices come with a switch to turn off such information, but many elite players opt for devices that do not provide elevation and other data as a precaution against forgetting to turn off those functions.
Steven Alker had the best round Sunday but no one was going to catch Barron.
Just before the start of the final round of the 2024 Regions Tradition, the first of five majors in 2024 on the PGA Tour Champions schedule, Steve Stricker withdrew from next week’s PGA Championship, the second major of the PGA Tour campaign. Stricker was in that field by virtue of his win in the 2023 KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship.
He’s also the two-time defending champ of the Regions Tradition at Greystone Golf & Country Club in Birmingham, Alabama, but a final-round 69 left him short of an eighth Champions tour major.
Sunday started with Doug Barron and Ernie Els, both chasing their first PGA Tour Champions major title, tied for the lead.
While Els could only spin his wheels, shooting a 1-under 71 to finish 14-under, Barron, who said he woke up at four in the morning but sounded like he didn’t mean to, took control of the event. He followed his third-round 66 – the best round of the day by three shots – with a bogey-free, final-round 68 to finish 17 under and win his first senior major by two shots.
“Today was just a dream come true, beating all these great players,” Barron told Golf Channel on the 18th green minutes after his victory. He was in the final group alongside Els and Padraig Harrington.
At the @RegionsTrad, all champions receive a green bike.
— PGA TOUR Champions (@ChampionsTour) May 13, 2024
Barron, 54, earned $390,000 for the win. The total purse for the tournament was $2.6 million. He now has three victories on the senior circuit.
He praised his putting coach for his success on the greens all week.
“I got one of the best putting lessons from my coach back home last week, and I really got my putter going. I felt like I could make an 8-footer again,” he said. “It was huge because I didn’t hit any fairways. I hardly missed a fairway coming into today.”
Steven Alker was solo second after firing a 9-under 63 on Sunday, the best score of the week by two shots.
Stewart Cink finished tied for third with Stricker and Els. Charlie Wi and K.J. Choi tied for sixth. Bernhard Langer, in his second event back after recovering from Achilles surgery, tied for eighth with Kenny Perry. Padraig Harrington, Brian Gay and Stuart Appleby tied for 10th at 9 under. Harrington was in the final group but posted a final-round 74.
The first round got postponed Friday by heavy rain. They were able to play 36 holes Saturday. More overnight rain then wiped out Sunday’s final.
Enough is enough, said PGA Tour Champions, as the 2024 Insperity Invitational was called and Scott Dunlap was declared the winner.
The tour’s official statement said:
“The weather affecting the greater Houston area overnight and throughout the morning has required Round 3 of the Insperity Invitational to be cancelled. Therefore, in accordance with the PGA Tour Champions Regulations, the tournament results will be final through the conclusion of 36 holes.”
Dunlap shot 65-70 on Saturday to finish 9 under, one stroke ahead of Joe Durant and Stuart Appleby. Dunlap earned his second PGA Tour Champions win and first in a decade.
After play on Saturday, with Sunday’s action uncertain, Dunlap commented on his efforts to keep grinding at his game.
“I’ve been pretty mediocre for the last few years and even though I’m getting older, it’s like, I think I can do better than this but you don’t know until you do,” he said. “It’s the great thing about golf. You just keep trying to get better, and you never know if you are going to until you do.”
On Sunday, after being declared the winner Dunlap expounded on what this win does for him.
“At the end of the day, these are real first-world problems. I mean, I knew I was going to play twentysome tournaments this year, but I got to make hay if I want to not do that next year I’ve got to finish 45th to 49th on the Money List, which is what I’ve done,” he said. “And once again, like I said, I think I should have been doing better than that. I wasn’t. I was getting a little worse each year, but I said ‘This is not an inevitable slide.’ I should be able to turn this around possibly, but until you do, you don’t know if you are going to. And, now we’ve taken a good step in the right direction.”
Dunlap earned $405,000 for the win, his first in 191 starts, and was only in the field on a sponsor exemption.
Scott Dunlap wasn’t expecting to play golf this week.
After receiving a sponsor exemption @InsperityInvtnl, Dunlap was overcome with emotion.
Charles Schwab Cup points leader Steven Alker was tie for fourth alongside Thonchai Jaidee.
Bernhard Langer, playing for the first time since tearing his Achilles in early February, shot 69-74 and tied for 31st. That means the 66-year-old beat 40 guys in the field this week outside Houston just three months removed from surgery.
The 66-year-old Energizer Bunny of PGA Tour Champions, who tore his left Achilles tendon while playing pickleball on Feb. 1, defied the odds and returns to action just three months later at the Insperity Invitational this week.
“I was talking to my surgeon and my PT – you know how long will this recovery be and they were well, 4-6 months, and I was like I got this tournament that I’d love to play, it’s in 3 months,” Langer recalled Wednesday during a pre-tournament press conference. “And they were going, well, we don’t know about that. I love this Tournament, Insperity. I have won it four times, it was my first victory on this Tour. The other thing I was arguing with my PT and my surgeon is that Houston is very flat. It is like south Florida, easy to walk and get around. It is not hilly. They finally agreed after I played about a week ago and showed them I am capable of doing this. There are no restrictions, I am not in pain, and they all said alright you have our blessing – go and be careful.”
Overcoming obstacles is nothing new for Langer, who has been doing it all his life. In the new book “Life on the Green: Lessons and Wisdom from Legends of Golf,” sports broadcaster Ann Liguori chronicles some of the obstacles that Langer has faced in his life starting from his birth. Langer’s mother was told that she ran a high risk of losing her child and her own life.
“She went to the doctor and the doctor said, ‘Well, Mrs. Langer, you need to abort the child because if you don’t, you’re going to kill yourself and the baby, and then you leave a husband behind with two little kids.’ And my mother said, ‘No, I’m not going to abort,’ ” Langer recalls.
They both made it through with Bernhard being born on Aug. 27, 1957, in the village of Anhausen, near Augsburg, Germany, the youngest of three children of Erwin and Walburga (Wally) Langer.
Langer had another near-death experience as a baby when his temperature spiked so high that the doctor said, “There’s nothing we can do anymore. We don’t have any medication that can bring the fever down. We have no remedies and he’s probably going to die.”
Perhaps the ability to cheat death is an inherited trait. Langer’s father was a prisoner of war during World War II and was on his way to a Siberian prison camp when he jumped off a train and escaped at night while being shot at. Erwin Langer, who became a bricklayer, hid in the woods and traveled west at night back to Germany. A couple of weeks later the war ended.
It was Langer’s oldest brother, who worked as a caddie at the one golf club located 5 miles away from their home, that introduced Bernhard to the game when he was nine years old. Langer would ride his bicycle to the course.
“I begged him to take me and eventually he took me, and my first bag was the club champion, a 2-handicap, best player in the club and he liked this little nine-year-old plump kid and he said, ‘You’re going to be my regular caddie from here on in,’ ” Langer recalls in the book.
Langer became an expert at finding golf balls, which earned him bigger tips and the nickname Eagle Eye or “Wachsamer Blick” in German. “I realized if I smile and I’m happy and greet them and put on a good show, they’ll give me a tip,” Langer said. “Those are lessons I learned at a very young age.”
Langer is self-taught and he became good enough to turn pro at age 15. First he went to the Institute of Job Placement and was asked what career he wanted to pursue.
“I said, ‘I want to become a golf teacher, a golf professional.’ And the guy didn’t even know what that was. That just tells you how few people played golf in Germany. It wasn’t even a recognized profession,” Langer said.
A member at his club helped him get a job as an assistant. At 17, he met a businessman from Cologne who offered to sponsor him on the European Tour. “I knew I could at least try for two years on Tour without being bankrupt.,” Langer said.
1984 Masters Champion Ben Crenshaw shakes the hand of 1985 Masters Champion Bernhard Langer at the Presentation Ceremony during the 1985 Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club on April 14th, 1985 in Augusta, Georgia. (Photo by Augusta National/Getty Images)
He would go on to win the Masters twice, star in Ryder Cups and become the winningest senior golfer – all despite suffering from the yips on four separate occasions. The last time was in 1989 and his putting had gotten so bad that while playing in a tournament in Michigan, he dropped to his knees and prayed to God: “If you want me to give up this game, I’m happy to give it up. Just tell me if you want me to move on to something else.”
Jim Hiskey, a former tour pro who helped form the PGA Tour bible study group, told Langer, “I don’t think God is done with you. He wants you to continue to persevere as hard as it may seem right now, and he’s got bigger plans for you, so keep going.”
Ligouri’s book goes on to share what Langer describes as the key to his longevity and how his longevity has become his hallmark.
Langer is just one of a dozen legends to offer inspiration and insight in Liguori’s new book. “Life on the Green” also details the lessons that built the likes of Nancy Lopez, Tom Watson, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Annika Sorenstam into champions in golf and in life.
Given all that Langer has overcome and accomplished, it’s fair to ask what will he do next? Langer said he’s going to try to ease back into competition, knowing he’s not quite fully healed yet.
“Most tournaments I arrive and I’m hoping to be in contention on Sunday afternoon, and I know I may only win one, or two, or three a year, but I’d like to think I am one of those that might have a chance,” he said ahead of the Insperity Invitational. “I don’t really expect that of me right now, not this week and maybe not next week either, but in a few weeks from now I think I should be expecting that again. And, so that is where I am.”
Ames eagled the par-5 sixth and par-4 13th at TPC Sugarloaf on Sunday.
Two of the seven events so far in 2024 have been won by a Steve: Steven Alker at the season opening Mitsubishi Electric Championship in Hawaii in January and Stephen Ames, who won the Chubb Classic in February.
Now, make it a third.
This follows a 2023 in which 13 of the 28 events were won by some form of a Steve, including Alker, Ames, Steve Stricker and Steve Flesch.
This week at the 2024 Mitsubishi Electric Classic at TPC Sugarloaf in Duluth, Georgia, it was Ames riding the strenth of two eagles in the final round to win by four shots over Paul Broadhurst and Doug Barron.
On the sixth hole Sunday, which is his 60th birthday, Ames grabbed a share of the lead after holing out for his first eagle of the day.
Ames took a three-shot lead on 13 when he carded his second eagle of the day after driving the green on the 310-yard par 4 to get to 14 under. From there, he had two birdies and two bogeys to close with a 67 to claim his eighth win but more impressively his sixth in his last 29 starts on the tour.
“Two reasons to celebrate tonight,” Ames said, noting the win on his birthday, which is also his third in this event. “The first day wasn’t that bad, I hit two bad shots, made two doubles. It was like, you know what, it felt good, I didn’t really kick myself down at all. Then I came out the next day and I was like it was a little calm unlike today and I just played golf and didn’t make any mistakes and I made eight birdies. So that just kind of vaulted me straight back up the board there. I was like, hey, now I give myself an opportunity and I took the opportunity in hand, which was nice.”
K.J. Choi and Steven Alker tied for fifth at 9 under.
Chip shots
Broadhurst, who led by a shot after 36 holes, was seeking to be the first to win back-to-back tournaments on the PGA Tour Champions since Steve Stricker won consecutive majors in May of 2023 and also the first to win back-to-back weeks on the Champions tour when Bernhard Langer did it in 2017.
Langer, out since February after tearing his Achilles playing pickleball, has announced his return to the Champions tour will come next week at the Insperity Invitational near Houston.
Jay Haas, 70, beat his age by three shots with a 5-under 67 in the second round. It’s the fourth time he’s shot his age or better during the 2024 season.
John Daly, not in the field this week, turned 58 on Sunday.
