“We’ve had a good relationship, friendly one … I believe we both have a lot of respect for each other.”
Even for Bernhard Langer, a walking Masterclass in consistency, the number appeared otherworldly.
Hale Irwin’s record of 45 PGA Tour Champions titles was one that most assumed would never be broken. Irwin’s incredible stretch started in 1995 when he captured the Ameritech Senior Open and extended through the 2007 MasterCard Championship at Hualalai. Along the way, Irwin captured seven major titles, including two U.S. Senior Opens.
So when Langer, now 66, held off a crowd at SentryWorld in July to put the finishing touches on the 2023 U.S. Senior Open and his 46th win on the senior circuit, even he was in awe of what had been accomplished.
On Wednesday, in advance of the Ascension Charity Classic at Norwood Hills Country Club outside St. Louis, Langer reflected on the win and the milestone he never thought he’d reach.
“It’s incredible, really amazing. I didn’t think it was achievable when I came out here first, and then as I came closer and closer to it, I said, oh, well, maybe, outside chance, but you never know if you get hurt or if your game goes south or whatever the case may be,” he said. “I got closer and closer, and thought, well, it’s definitely possible now.
“But the way it turned out, to win it with maybe one of the biggest events that we have with the U.S. Senior Open and to do it in the fashion I did it, having a seven-shot lead with a few holes to go, was pretty amazing. I couldn’t have dreamt it up any better. It was a great victory, great venue, and had a few friends there to celebrate with me.
“Now everything else is just gravy, whatever comes.”
Opening the day with a two-shot lead at the U.S. Senior Open, the 65-year-old steadily held off Steve Stricker and others with a 7-under 277 for the tournament, capped by a solid 1-under 70 final round.
Bernhard Langer poses with the Francis D. Ouimet Memorial Trophy after winning the 2023 U.S. Senior Open Championship at SentryWorld in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. (Photo: Patrick McDermott/Getty Images)
This week’s event is one of five remaining regular-season tournaments before the Charles Schwab Cup Playoffs. Langer is looking for his third win of the season and currently sits third in the Schwab standings, but he added on Wednesday that he’s still enjoying looking back at passing Irwin. Respectfully, of course.
“We’ve had a good relationship, friendly one. We’ve known each other for many, many years, competed in the U.S. in other tournaments, mostly against each other in the Ryder Cup once or twice, I think,” Langer said. “But I believe we both have a lot of respect for each other. He used to be on the PAC Advisory Council for the two and so was I, so we spent some meetings together there. We share a lot of commonalities.
“He’s a great ambassador for the game of golf, great role model for all of us, and I still enjoy seeing him when he plays in the Legends or Tournaments of Greats they call it when they come out two or three times a year.”
And when Langer clipped Irwin’s record, did he hear from the now 78-year-old star?
“I did, yeah. He sent me a text congratulating me, and it was very nice to receive it from him because of the respect I have for him and what he’s achieved in his career. It means a great deal,” Langer said.
Some of the bronze plaques for the 176 members of the World Golf Hall of Fame are better than others.
ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — It’s golf’s highest honor.
To be elected into the World Golf Hall of Fame is to be enshrined among the greatest. There have been only 176 men and women to be inducted in the Hall.
When the facility opened at World Golf Village in 1998, the members were commemorated with crystals but they were mounted in the floor and took up too much space for special events. So, the crystals were removed and bronze plaques replaced them. Some are better than others. According to the Florida Times Union, the plaques will not be relocated to Pinehurst, N.C., where the Hall will take up residency again in 2024.
Some of the plaques, it really helps to have the name written below it because the resemblance is minimal at best. See if you can name the Hall member.
The Presidents Cup, now in its 14th edition, first launched in 1994.
The Presidents Cup, now in its 14th edition, first launched in 1994.
Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Prince William County, Virginia, was the host site for the first biennial competition pitting the top 12 American golfers vs. 12 of the best golfers from around the world, minus the European nations.
The 38th President of the United States, Gerald R. Ford, was named honorary chairman.
The team captains were Hale Irwin, who also played for the U.S., and David Graham for the International squad.
The U.S. won that inaugural event, 20-12. Davis Love III went 4-0-1 that week, while Fred Couples went 3-0. Jay Haas (3-2-0) and Jim Gallagher, Jr. (3-1-1) also each won three matches for the U.S.
The International squad, which lost Greg Norman just days before the competition due to illness, was led by Vijay Singh, who went 3-1-1.
Douglass won three times on the PGA Tour and 11 times on the senior circuit.
Dale Douglass, a former PGA Tour winner and U.S. Senior Open champion, died in Scottsdale, Ariz., after a long illness on July 6, according to the University of Colorado Sports Information Department; he was 86.
Douglass won three times on the PGA Tour (with three playoff losses), represented the U.S. at the 1969 Ryder Cup and was one of the early players to have great success on the Senior Tour (since renamed the PGA Tour Champions). He won 11 times on that circuit, including one major, as he defeated Gary Player by one stroke in the 1986 U.S. Senior Open in Columbus, Ohio.
Born Dale Dwight Douglass on March 5, 1936 in Wewoka, Okla., he grew up in Fort Morgan, Colo., where he graduated high school before enrolling at Colorado in the fall of 1955. Douglass was a three-time, first-team all-conference performer, in the Big Seven in 1956 and the Big Eight in 1958 and 1959. He was inducted into the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 2010, the second golfer to do so after Hale Irwin.
“Dale was so very proud of being from Fort Morgan and the University of Colorado,” Irwin said. “He wore the school colors proudly…Dale was like my big brother, and I was like his bratty little brother. We throw the word mentor around a lot, but in Dale’s case, I can elevate the word mentor to friend. I’ll miss him.”
Douglass became the first University of Colorado golfer to play on the PGA Tour, and went on to become just the fifth player in history to play in 500 tournaments when he reached the mark in 2003. He earned more than $9 million as a professional after turning pro in 1960 and earning his PGA Tour card in 1963.
“I was 27 years,” Douglass told Golfweek in 2010. “I was an assistant pro in Wyoming. I was a Monday qualifier. It was kind of fun, and yet we hated it. You wouldn’t do anything else. If you wanted to play golf, that’s what you did. Monday qualifying was a difficult way to do things. It allowed you to make the team every week rather than if you missed at the Q-school you’re out for the year.”
Irwin was in Charlotte at the 1969 Kemper Open and watched Douglass wrap up a four-stroke win over Charles Coody, his second Tour win at the time. In 1974, when Irwin won his first of three U.S. Opens at Winged Foot (Mamaroneck, N.Y.), both Irwin, Douglass (who tied for 18th) and their wives (Sally and Joyce, respectively) celebrated that evening with room service, one of countless dinners the couples had together.
Douglass joined the Senior Tour in 1986, where he would become a fixture for more than 20 years, playing in exactly 600 Senior/Champions Tour events through 2011, with 26 runner-up finishes and 151 top-10 finishes to go with his 11 victories.
“I had lost my game in the middle 1970s,” Douglass told Golfweek. “Playing the Senior Tour seemed like I had gone to heaven.”
He was preceded in death by his wife, Joyce. Services are pending but will be held in Colorado Springs.
“Golf has lost a real gentleman and a man who really championed golf throughout the country,” Irwin said. “He did so much for a lot of people, particularly in Colorado. There was never a bad word you heard from anyone about Dale Douglass.”
Bernhard Langer wins his 43rd Champions victory, closes in on Hale Irwin’s mark.
NAPLES, Fla. — Bernhard Langer turned professional almost 50 years ago. He started out teaching others in Germany how to play the game.
Fifty years later, he’s one of the best to ever play it.
Langer tapped in for birdie on the 18th hole to win the Chubb Classic by three strokes on Sunday at Tiburón Golf Club at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort’s Black Course.
Langer bogeyed No. 17, but had a two-shot lead so he was able to enjoy the 18th.
“I hit a super tee shot and hit as good a 2-hybrid as I can to the middle of the green,” he said. “Took all the pressure off and was able to celebrate all the way down here, which doesn’t happen very often. Usually have to play until the very last ball drops.”
It’s the record fourth victory in Naples for Langer, 64, and 43rd win for him on the PGA Tour Champions, putting him two behind record-holder Hale Irwin, who also had won three times in Naples.
“I’m coming after you, Hale,” Langer said.
Bernhard Langer holds up the trophy after winning the 2022 Chubb Classic at the Tiburon Golf Club in Naples, Florida. (Photo: Caitlyn Jordan/Naples Daily News)
“Years ago I thought, ‘Yeah, well, that’s almost impossible to reach that,'” he added later. “… I can’t wait two or three years. I got to do it fairly soon.”
If Langer plays like he did this week, it just might be. Langer shot his age with an 8-under 64 in the first round, never trailed in 54 holes, and hit 39 of 42 fairways over three days of varying winds in a show of precision.
“Germans win the gold again, jeez, unbelievable. Shocker,” said Tim Petrovic, who finished second at 3-under 203.
Retief Goosen was another shot back after birdies on three of his final five. Brian Gay, making his Champions tour debut, was fourth at 10 under.
“Bernhard’s playing unbelievable today,” Goosen said. “I think he had one bad shot.”
“It’s pretty normal, right?” said Gay of Langer being atop the leaderboard. “Except I’m not used to being out there with him. Pretty unbelievable. He just keeps going.”
Miguel Angel Jimenez, Robert Karlsson, Steven Alker, Jerry Kelly, and Scott Parel all tied for fifth at 9 under. Jimenez (2019) and Parel (2020) are former champions.
Karlsson said he first played with Langer in 1990 or so. Thirty-plus years later, there’s not much difference.
“He’s older so he doesn’t hit it very far, but he keeps the ball in play all of the time and putts fantastic,” he said. “It’s fantastic to see. It’s the same type of game. He doesn’t give away anything, so few mistakes. That’s why he wins.”
“It would be amazing if he was 50 and played as consistently as he does,” said two-time U.S. Open champion Lee Janzen, a former winner in Naples. “I haven’t looked at all the numbers, but it seems that he’s played better closer to 60 and older than he did before.
“He’s rock-solid inside 10 feet, which is a great thing to be good at. A guy like Langer, he’s been great going on 50 years. … And then he played with (Bryson) DeChambeau at the Masters two years ago and beat him. They should do a (ESPN) ’30 for 30’ on that one.”
Petrovic, playing in the group in front of Langer, tried to keep the pressure on. He made a birdie putt at No. 9, but Langer thought that it may have been for eagle, and that turned into the decisive shot.
Langer already had a good drive on the par 5 — he joked about being up there with his playing partners Goosen and Parel — and decided to hit a 3-wood from 231 yards and go for the green.
“He was creeping closer to me so I had to get up there and get out and conquer that one and answer by making birdie or maybe an eagle,” Langer said. “I was very happy with that golf shot.”
Langer missed the 15-foot eagle putt, but made the birdie and carried a three-shot lead to the back. Petrovic stuck iron shots on Nos. 13 and 14 to get to 13 under, but Langer birdied No. 13 and 15 to stay up by three.
And when it was over, Langer was up again.
He has 42 victories on the European Tour, three on the PGA Tour, and others on the Japan Golf Tour, Asian Tour, Australasian Tour and Tour de las Americas.
Langer had no idea what to expect when he decided to play professionally after winning his first tournament in Germany at 17.
“So I figured, well, I would love to try playing golf for a living, but I didn’t have any money and I didn’t know if I was any good compared to players from overseas,” he said. “There were no Germans on the Tour. I was the first full-time pro that played tournament golf, so I had no one to compare myself with.
“Anyway, we know the rest. It all turned out for the better. I didn’t have to go back for teaching, and as you say, almost 50 years later I’m still here.”
“People say, ‘you’re a perfectionist.’ I disagree because you’re never going to achieve that. But I love the process.”
Bernhard Langer dislikes a couple of public perceptions of him as having a methodical, A-to-B golf game and an impenetrable, cold personality.
In regards to the former, he merely points out that any player who has won two Masters, four Senior Opens and sports a winning record in 10 Ryder Cups has imagination and creativity.
As far as the latter, well, who was that guy in a fake beard and wig, running around the Timuquana Country Club during Wednesday’s Constellation Furyk & Friends pro-am rounds, pretending to be a course maintenance worker (moving tee markers around) or a member of the media, depending on which of his fellow players he encountered?
None other than Langer, who said he just got the bug to put on a disguise and act silly.
“It’s fun,” he said on Thursday before the second pro-am Furyk & Friends, which begins on Friday. “Some people think of me as this stoic, focused German and they don’t really know me. I like to laugh, I like to have fun. I have a personality that’s different from that. On the golf course I’m very focused and intense because it’s my job and I’m trying to win and do well. There’s another side of me that likes to have a good laugh.”
Indeed, Padraig Harrington said one of his enduring memories of the 2004 Ryder Cup at Oakland Hills, where Langer captained the European team to a one-sided rout of the U.S., was discovering Langer’s sense of humor in the team room.
“Probably the most surprising thing about his captaincy is his sense of humor because he comes across as being very straight,” Harrington said. “But he had a great sense of humor that week. It was the one thing that jumped out that week that you didn’t know about.”
Langer chasing Hale Irwin
Langer also has been laughing all the way to the bank since joining the PGA Tour Champions in 2007. He won and had four top-10 finishes in five starts that year, won three in 2008 and hasn’t stopped yet. Langer has won 41 times on the senior circuit, four short of Hale Irwin’s record, and holds the record with 11 PGA Tour Champions majors, including four Senior Open titles and three Senior Players Championships.
Langer has been voted player of the year eight times, won 10 money titles and enters this week No. 1 on the Charles Schwab Cup points list, bidding for a record sixth Schwab Cup in a row.
Just for good measure, he shot his age of 64 in August, at the Ally Challenge — on his birthday.
All of that was after Langer carved out a career that was good enough to earn induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2001: 42 European PGA Tour titles, second all-time, two Order or Merits, a 21-15-6 record in the Ryder Cup and his Masters titles in 1985 and 1993.
South Bend Tribune
In his 15th season on the PGA Tour Champions (all with longtime caddie Terry Holt of Ponte Vedra Beach), Langer said it’s getting harder to win. He has one victory in the merged 2020-21 season but is always lurking late Sunday, with 21 top-10s in 29 starts, and six in his last 10 starts.
With a trim waistline, an unlined face that looks 20 years younger and seemingly boundless energy, Langer shows no signs of slowing down.
I’ve always said that there are three major things [to keep him playing],” he said. “If I’m healthy enough to do, if I still love the game and if I’m successful. If one of those three is missing, or two, maybe it’s time to think about [retiring] Right now, I’m still reasonably healthy, I love what I’m doing and I’m still successful.”
Fellow pros praise Langer
Langer’s peers remain in awe of his longevity.
“It’s incredible … it’s one of those true incredible stories in golf, really,” said Ernie Els. “To do what he’s done and at 64 he’s leading the Charles Schwab Cup again, think about it … 64, you know? You’ve still got to practice and keep your game sharp, you’ve got to travel, you’ve got to get the body going. He plays like a young man and he’s got that desire still, which is incredible.”
Harrington said Langer survives and thrives because of his iron and wedge game, his boundless energy and his competitive heat.
He said he watched Langer practice at the PNC Father-Son one year (which Langer has won three times, two with his son Jason and one with his other son Stefan) and marveled at the shots Langer rained down on one flag from wedge distance.
“Just his personality, his nature,” Harrington said. “Obviously he’s physically very fit, always has been. If you stand behind him on the range, you know why he’s that good. From like 140 yards, if you watch any of those short flags out there, his ball just comes down all over it. He’s particularly good and you can see why he is competitive out here. One good wedge shot always equals a good drive anywhere. You can see Bernhard from 7-iron down is really good and he’s solid everywhere else.”
Chasing perfection
Langer said one reason he keeps grinding is the drive to master a game no one really does … and he admits it.
That doesn’t mean he won’t keep trying.
“It can be brutal … it can bring you back down,” he said. “It’s a very humbling game. You play great one day, you think you’ve got it and the next day it brings you right back down to earth. You never will achieve perfection. People say, ‘you’re a perfectionist.’ I disagree because you’re never going to achieve that. But I love the process.”
He should have a great chance this week at Timuquana, which plays right into Langer’s deadly combination of precision and imagination on the Donald Ross design.
“It’s in great shape … a beautiful spot,” he said of the course. “I enjoy most Donald Ross courses. His trademark are greens that slope back to front and fall off everywhere. You have to be very precise and think your way around it. You can’t attack every flag you look at and hope to get away with it.”
Langer said Irwin’s record is in his sights — even though he believed at one point that it was unbreakable.
He might have caught Irwin by now but has lost five playoffs in the last four years.
“To win 45 times in a few years is fantastic,” he said. “I thought it was never going to be broken. It may still never be broken. I haven’t given up on it yet but it’s getting harder.”
But Langer will keep coming back to the golf course until his passion and body run out. Don’t count on either any time soon.
Peter McGarey is enthusiastic when he recalls the details of Hale Irwin’s victory. The 16-year-old was on the bag at the U.S. Open.
The details of a gritty U.S. Open win remain vivid nearly five decades later, but there’s not even a hint of hyperbole when Hale Irwin replays a memorable week that’s recorded in history as the Massacre at Winged Foot.
“It was difficult,” he said.
With a little encouragement, Irwin offers a little more.
“It was very difficult,” he added.
Many of the best players in the game walked off the West Course scarred – Johnny Miller, Gary Player and Tom Watson among them. Irwin’s assessment is typically accurate. The cut was 13-over par. Irwin was resolute from wire to wire, playing through all the grumbling and grousing directed at the USGA.
He posted a 7-over total of 287 to capture the first of his three U.S. Open titles.
“I think Winged Foot was certainly the hardest course I’ve ever played where weather was not an issue,” Irwin said last week from his home in Arizona. “It was trying. You got on the first tee and knew it was just going to get harder from there. Every shot was going to be challenging. You couldn’t get upset with a bogey because you were going to make them. My goal was to be very happy with par, on any hole. What I wanted to escape was making anything worse than a bogey. If you made a double or more that was a killer because you couldn’t make up enough strokes to offset that.”
Peter McGarey, 16, of Scottsdale, Ariz., reaches to offer congratulations to Hale Irwin after the latter’s fairway shot on the 18th reached the green and prior to Irwin’s winning the U.S. Open golf championship, June 16, 1974, in Mamaroneck, N.Y. Peter, formally of Larchmont, a neighboring town, was invited back to caddy in the Open by the caddie master at the Winged Foot Golf Club, site of the Open.
That game plan suited the setup.
Peter McGarey is noticeably more enthusiastic when he recalls the details of that victory, right down to a stellar 2-iron on the 72nd hole that locked down the victory. He was there. Up close. Inside the ropes for every shot.
The 62-year-old home builder from Cincinnati was on the bag.
“Very few people believe me when I tell that story,” said McGarey, who grew up in Larchmont and began to work at Winged Foot at the age of 9. “And my wife is tired of hearing it.”
In those days, the USGA mandated players use loopers from the host club.
“Early on, you could shag balls at the range,” McGarey said. “My older brother started caddying so I did, too. It was a pretty good way to make money, plus you got to play on Mondays. Gene Hayden was the caddie master back then and he rewarded people for showing up on a regular basis. It was $6.50 a loop, plus tips. They always had tournaments and not just the member-guests. I was there for the 1972 U.S. Women’s Open and drew Jane Booth, who came in tied for sixth as an amateur.”
The family later moved to Scottsdale, Arizona, but wrote Hayden and the board at Winged Foot asking if McGarey could return to work the U.S. Open.
“I barely knew who Irwin was, to tell you the truth,” said McGarey, who was 16 years old that June and got the loop in a lottery. “He did have a couple of wins. You couldn’t Google things back then. Word of mouth was he’d done well in Philadelphia a week or two before.”
Hale Irwin holds the U.S. Open Championship Trophy in 1974 after finishing the grind with a 7-over total of 287 on the West Course at Winged Foot Golf Club.
The relationship inside the ropes was cordial, but quiet.
“I wanted a caddie who was on time and not one who might attempt to influence how I was going to play,” said Irwin, who read the greens and picked clubs even. “I had a plan. Peter was a good caddie in the sense that he did what he was supposed to do. One day he may have been a little bit tardy and I mentioned that, but he did everything I asked of him. Peter kept up well, he was a nice young man and I enjoyed having him there.”
A little tardy?
“Hale was very nice, very strict,” McGarey said. “He was disciplined and expected the same from me. There was a set of expectations. I’m sure it was on Monday, I wanted to see Arnold Palmer. You wore those blue jump suits and Hale’s name was pinned to my back. Palmer was coming up to nine green so I was waiting. I had the bag with me and Hale grabbed the back of my jumper. He was not very happy.”
Irwin laughs about it now.
“Who wouldn’t want to watch Arnold Palmer?” he said. “We all did. I got to know Arnie better and better over the years. He was a great man and I don’t blame Peter one bit.”
McGarey went stride for stride with Irwin the rest of the week.
“Hale was a great player and only got better from there,” he said. “I’ve often thought, with the chances of winning a U.S. Open being so narrow, even if he needed to focus more because I was so young, I figure I contributed in some way. I was probably the youngest caddie on the course. Some of the my friends did not get the chance. They were spotting balls in the fairway. Hale was quiet. He was very focused. It was pretty intense. Saturday we were with Raymond Floyd and Sunday we were with Tom Watson and Hale prevailed both days against very stiff competition.”
Even a slight miscalculation came with a hefty price that week.
Many of the players swore the USGA was exacting payback after Miller shot a final-round 63 to win at Oakmont the previous year and the debate raged for years.
Gary Player was tied for the lead after 36 holes, but closed with rounds of 77 and 73 to finish in an eighth-place tie.
“I’ll never forget Winged Foot that year, it was so hard, the rough was so high,” he said. “I was leading the championship and hit the most beautiful approach on No. 4 and the ball went half an inch out of bounds. That really hurt. What a test that course was.”
Hale Irwin only had to correct Peter McGarey once during the week after the 16-year-old wandered off to get a glimpse of Arnold Palmer.
Watson had a one-shot lead after 54 holes, but closed with a 79 and finished in a fifth-place tie.
And with the weather cooperating, the conditions are perfect for another week-long struggle. The rough is healthy and menacing. The greens are undulating and slick.
“The doom and gloom in the locker room several days prior to the tournament was palpable,” said Irwin, who collected 20 PGA Tour wins, including the 1990 Buick Classic at Westchester Country Club. “We were all walking around like, ‘How in the world am I going to make it through this week?’ You had to hit the ball in the fairway and I think these guys have seen that this season. Jack Nicklaus had the rough up at the Memorial and the rough was up for the BMW Championship at Olympia Fields. You’ve got to hit the ball in the fairway. That was kind of up my alley. I drove the ball straight and hit a lot of greens. I’m not saying I didn’t make mistakes. We all made mistakes that week. It was very difficult that week and the greens were Winged Foot greens. Even by 1974 standards, they were very quick, so it had all the ingredients.”
And what happens if there’s a repeat.
“Well, there will probably be a lot of fines,” Irwin said with a nod to social media habits.
Twitter would no doubt be ablaze with commentary.
Irwin, is 72 now and plays select PGA Tour Champions events. He is also beginning a new venture with Keeler1930, a multi-channel digital platform that will be unveiled in the coming weeks.
“They have me kind of be up front, telling stories and bringing forth some of the history, talking about the individuals who have been instrumental in making golf what it is and some of the things that have happened through the years,” he said.
Irwin has no issue with the Massacre at Winged Foot label, which maybe credits the win more to attrition than skill.
“It was a massacre,” he said. “You can’t deny that. It’s like Custer and Little Big Horn. It was a massacre. There’s no better way to describe it and it does make for a title you can remember so that’s OK.”
McGarey is coming back to Winged Foot this week and will be a USGA volunteer on the driving range alongside his son after they go through all the COVID-19 testing protocols.
A flashback or two is entirely possible.
“The whole experience was incredible,” McGarey said. “When they got in the rough that week they were hacking it out. It was tough even finding golf balls in there. It was a large stage and being in the last group in a Sunday in a major was unreal. I had my own little mini crowd of followers cheering us on the entire weekend. After every tee shot there was a lot of, ‘Go Peter.’ I think Hale was in a zone. And on the last hole, there was a tee shot to the top of the hill, right side of the fairway, and then he hit that 2-iron right over the stick. Boom. It was crazy.”
Mike Dougherty covers golf for The Journal News/lohud.com, part of the USA today Network. He can be reached at mdougher@lohud.com or on Twitter @hoopsmbd and @lohudgolf.
As Bernhard Langer closes in on his record of 45 PGA Tour Champions victories, Hale Irwin doesn’t sound overly possessive.
As Bernhard Langer closes in on his record of 45 PGA Tour Champions victories, Hale Irwin doesn’t sound overly possessive.
But there is a hint of regret in the 75-year-old’s voice, a touch of disappointment. Not because he feels as if the machine-like Langer will eventually pass him, but rather that he wishes he could have competed more in the twilight of his career.
Hampered by a foot injury that would require three to six months of rehab if he underwent surgery, Irwin has played in three tournaments in 2020, the same number in 2019, and hasn’t competed in more than eight since 2015.
“I probably could have played a little bit longer, more effectively had I wanted to,” Irwin said last week. “But things developed off the golf course that gave me opportunities to do other things. If you’re going to play competitive golf, that’s what you do. If you don’t do that wholeheartedly and with more attention than I was giving it, then you’re not going to play as well.
“Of course, someone like me that is highly competitive, I don’t like to accept something less than what I’m capable of. It was frustrating and I was tired of getting frustrated, so I just kind of stepped out of the arena and let those guys bang heads.”
Irwin returns to Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio, this week for the Bridgestone Senior Players Championship, but he won’t be competing in the $3 million event. Instead, Irwin will join Andy North, Tom Kite, Hal Sutton, Larry Nelson and Gary Koch in the Westfield Legends Pro-Am on Thursday morning at Westfield Country Club.
“I may have to withdraw, that’s too strong a field,” Irwin joked. He was speaking from Denver, where he was celebrating his son’s birthday.
[lawrence-related id=777999196,9999675,777824524]
Langer, who turns 63 on Aug. 27, has totaled 41 victories and will be among the favorites in the Bridgestone field. No. 2 in the Charles Schwab Cup rankings with five top 10s in six events this year, Langer has one victory in 2020, that in the Cologuard Classic in Tucson, Arizona, on March 1. He has won at least once for 14 consecutive years and has triumphed eight times at age 60 or older.
Irwin’s last victory came in 2007, but he has shot his age or better 44 times on the Champions Tour, well ahead of Gary Player, second on that list with 30. Among Irwin’s recent highlights was a first-round 67 in the PURE Insurance Championship at Pebble Beach in September 2018.
“The body and the mind, you take just a little bit of a hesitant step and the field just goes right by you. That’s kind of what I’ve done the last couple years,” Irwin said.
He said he has a “bunion net” on the outside of his left foot, where the bone toward the end of his little toe separated. It changed his swing pattern and affected his distance.
“The putting is still good, the short game is still good. I still drive the ball accurately,” Irwin said. “I’m 75, do I really want to get my foot operated on? Is it going to work? You just don’t know.”
Hale Irwin lines up a putt on the first hole during the final round of the Senior PGA Championship golf tournament at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky., Sunday, May 29, 2011.
Although COVID-19 protocols may prevent Irwin from hitting a shot at Firestone on this visit, he has fond memories of Akron, where he started to play in the American Golf Classic, which followed the Rubber City Open.
“Coming back reminds me of the very first time I was in Akron. It was such a well-run event, it was so much fun to play,” he said. “They were one of the first tournaments that actually had hospitality that would help players find housing and those kinds of things that we take for granted today. The city embraced it. It’s such a great golf environment.
“You had a really good golf course, you had really attentive crowds, it wasn’t a country club it was a golf club, so you kind of had that atmosphere. For me, it fit hand and glove.”
Family lured Irwin away from competitive golf after his design work dried up between 2007-09. But he plays in outings and said he has gotten more involved in non-golf-related businesses.
Irwin and his wife, Sally, have four grandchildren — “the light of my life right now,” he said — who range in age from 19 to nearly 5. His daughter lives in the Phoenix area near Irwin’s home in Paradise Valley with her two boys, his son in Denver has two girls. The Irwins have also kept their home in St. Louis, where they lived for many years.
Hale Irwin is shown with his trophy after winning the U.S. Open Championship title at the Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, N.Y., June 16, 1974. Irwin defeated Forrest Fezler with a score of 287. (AP Photo)
“I’m happy, let’s put it that way. I miss playing, I don’t miss the travel and all the other stuff that goes with that,” Irwin said. “There’s always a part of me that will stay tuned to the competitive arena of golf because that was my life for so many years.”
That means Irwin will be watching if Langer catches or passes his victory record.
“It’s his to make or break,” Irwin said. “Have to give the man credit, he’s played extremely well through his later years. I had my run at it.
“If Bernhard makes it, I’ll applaud him. If he doesn’t, he gave it a great try. Nothing I can do about it, just wake up every morning and bless the sunrise.”
