This week at Augusta National, one of the greats of European golf will be bidding farewell. After more than four decades of competing at the Masters Tournament, Bernhard Langer will make his 41st and final appearance.
Langer intended to play the Masters for the final time in 2024, but those plans were altered when he sustained a torn Achilles while playing pickleball.
The German defied the odds to make a rapid return to competitive golf three months later, and he now belatedly makes his Georgia swansong.
Part of the 'Big Five' of European golf, alongside Severiano Ballesteros, Sir Nick Faldo, Sandy Lyle and Ian Woosnam, Langer was part of a golden era.
Only Ballesteros has won more than Langer's 42 DP World Tour titles, while he also won the Harry Vardon Trophy twice and starred in the Ryder Cup as a victorious Captain and player.
But it is his two Green Jacket victories - in 1985 and 1993 - that will forever be remembered as his highlights.
As the 67-year-old, who continues to enjoy great success on the PGA TOUR Champions - winning a record 47 titles on the 50-and-over circuit - says goodbye, we recall the World Golf Hall of Famer's Masters memories.
1985
By the time Langer made his third Masters appearance in 1985, three years on from becoming Germany's first participant on his debut, he had already won 11 titles on the DP World Tour.
Twice a runner-up at The Open Championship by then too, he had yet to challenge for a major honour stateside however.
But that all changed when, dressed in red, he won the Masters by finishing two strokes ahead of Ballesteros, Raymond Floyd and Curtis Strange.
After rounds of 72 and 74 over the opening two days, the then 27-year-old trailed halfway leader Craig Stadler by six shots.
Yet, at the conclusion of the third round, Langer had reduced the deficit to two with the first of back-to-back 68s over the weekend.
Heading into the back nine in the final round, he trailed Strange by four shots after the American made four front-nine birdies.
But as Strange made bogeys after finding the water on both the par five 13th and 15th, Langer produced near flawless golf with four birdies in a six-hole stretch from the 12th through to the 17th to climb to the summit of the leaderboard.
While he finished with a bogey, Strange was unable to find a birdie to force a play-off as a closing bogey saw him drop into a tie for second.
A week later, Langer won his second consecutive title on American soil in the Heritage Classic at Hilton Head Island.
1993
In the years that followed on from Langer's maiden Major win, he recorded top tens in 1987, 1988 and 1990.
One shot adrift at the midway stage of the tournament, he seized control with a third-round 69 - equaling the best round of the day - to open up a four-shot lead but at one point early on his back nine his advantage had been whittled down to just one by Dan Forsman.
However, after the American found the water twice at the par three 12th on his way to a quadruple bogey, Langer made an eagle at the par five 13th - helped by what he has since described as one of his career-best shots - as he pulled clear of final-round playing partner Chip Beck.
“[Beck] was I think two shots behind when we played 13,” Langer later said.
“He hit a phenomenal four wood in there to about 20 feet left of the flag, and I had a three iron from a side-hill lie over Rae’s Creek, and I hit one of the best shots I ever hit in my life and hit it inside of Chip Beck’s ball.
"I could read his line, because he was putting down the same line, and he missed, and I made it. So I made eagle to increase my lead, when it looked like he may have a chance to decrease the lead.
“That’s what happens when you hit great shots and make good putts.”
His second Green Jacket came during a spell when European golfers won six of the seven Masters editions from 1988 to 1994.
Making Masters history at 63
Langer has long since said his love of the Augusta National course was almost immediate from the first time he stepped foot onto the property.
His sense of comfort despite the undulating terrain is something that helped him make the cut for 19 straight years from 1984 to 2002.
At 56, he finished in the top ten at the Masters for the first time in a decade in 2014, ending in a tie for eighth.
Six years later, Langer was being lauded again as he became the oldest player ever at 63 to make the cut at the tournament, replacing Tommy Aaron. This record has since been overcome by Fred Couples in 2023.
“It's not easy to do it,” Langer said of the then record.
“There have been so many great players here before me, from Jack Nicklaus to Gary Player to all the greats that have competed here, and to be the oldest to make the cut, it's certainly an achievement.
“Hopefully I get to play a few more years and enjoy this place.”
While he is yet to add another Masters cut to his name, he will hope the Augusta National setting can bring out the best in him one more time.
europeantour.com
Bryan Angus (edit)
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