No One Has Played Better Golf For Longer Than Bernhard Langer

How does he keep doing it? Journeying from a rural village in Bavaria to the summit of world golf, Bernhard Langer's career has been the unlikeliest and most remarkable of tales, but his most recent chapter of success stands alongside the finest that he has written.

On Sunday, drawing another campaign on the PGA Tour Champions to a close, the German legend holed a 30-foot putt on the last to dramatically clinch the season-ending Charles Schwab Cup Championship, denying both Steven Alker and Richard Green the chance of victory and ensuring that he would continue his staggering record of winning at least one title in every year since he was eligible for the over 50s circuit.

It was his 47th triumph on the PGA Tour Champions and comes just months after the two-time Masters champion ruptured his Achilles in February.

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At the age of 67, Langer has once again established a new standard to beat as the oldest winner in the history of this tour. He first set that record in 2021 and has now broken it five times.

But do we take for granted just how exceptional the former world number one has been for decades and how good he remains to this day?

There is an argument to be made that no one has ever played to a higher standard of competitive golf for longer than Bernhard Langer.

(Image Credit: Kevin Diss Photography)

He turned professional as a teenager in 1972, when Alker and Green, the runners-up in Texas at the weekend, were both infants. It was a strange move to make for a young man from southern Germany, where a golf culture was more or less non-existent, but Langer defied that background and recurring struggles with putting yips to make a name for himself both in his homeland and across the wider continent.

The breakthrough win came at the German National Open Championship in 1975, which means that next year, Langer will potentially be competing against players on the senior circuit who weren't even born when he won his first professional title.

We can reel off his many achievements. There are 42 victories on the European Tour (second only to Seve Ballesteros) and those momentous successes at Augusta National in 1985 and 1993. Langer was the first official world number one in golf, he played in ten Ryder Cups and captained Europe to a dominant away victory in 2004. He's also won on all six continents where golf is played.

But it's since he turned 50 that the native Bavarian has etched his own place in history. He has won 12 senior major championships (the most ever) and mercilessly chased down Hale Irwin's seemingly unbeatable record of victories (45) on the Champions Tour, tying the American in February 2023 before clinching the US Senior Open last July to break new ground.

Now, with 47 titles to his name, could a half-century be a realistic target? 

It shouldn't be possible, but Langer has consistently found a way to defy the passage of time. Many players turn 50 and with renewed enthusiasm tally up wins early before slowly fading from relevance into their mid-50s and beyond. 

Bernhard Langer has just continued and maintained an incredible standard. Since his first full season on the tour in 2008, his seasonal scoring average has always been in the 60s. He has broken his age in competition 22 times - including twice at Phoenix Country Club on Friday and Sunday.

Statistically, despite not being immune to lost speed and distance with age, he's found a way to effectively play at the same level that he was a decade ago. That's unfathomable.

But has anyone else played to such a level for longer in the history of the game? Arguably not. Jack Nicklaus was retired by the age of 65, while Arnold Palmer and Gary Player were simply ceremonial figures at Langer's age. 

The great Sam Snead has a case, given he was still competitive in majors in his early 60s and made a cut on the PGA Tour aged 67 years, two months and 23 days.

What about Tom Watson, who could/should have won the Open just weeks shy of his 60th birthday? The five-time Champion Golfer of the Year won a senior major at 61 and made the halfway cut in the Open at Royal Liverpool at the age of 64.

But neither Watson nor Snead did it as well - for as often - as Langer has done. And that fact should be celebrated. Those who sneer at the German for his use of the long putter are missing the point entirely. 

That freak injury earlier in the year - occurring when playing pickleball - denied Langer a planned farewell appearance at the Masters in April. Back in 2020, Langer became the oldest player to make the cut in the first major of the year, a record that felt hard to beat, before Fred Couples surpassed that in 2023. But he will take a valedictory bow next year down Magnolia Lane and the game should salute a man who stands alongside the giants of not just European, but world golf.