By Bobby Clampett
I got up at 5 a.m. last Sunday, tuning into Golf Channel’s live internet feed from Wales, eager to watch Bernhard Langer win the Senior British Open for the third time. He didn’t disappoint. I’m blessed to call Bernhard one of my best friends.  Over the years, we’ve spent a lot of time together, both on and off the course.  We share a love for the mountains and we are both avid skiers. Our families have had many winter ski trips together. We’ve also played a lot of practice rounds together, even though both of us otherwise prefer to play practice rounds alone.

We first met in 1980 when John Cook and I traveled to France to play in the Cacherel World Under-25 Championship, a tournament in which Bernhard had a breakthrough win the year before. Winning by 15 strokes was noteworthy enough, but more important was that it meant Bernhard had overcome his first case of the putting yips.

When we were paired together in the first two rounds in the 1982 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, his yips were returning. Bernhard missed the cut, I finished third (behind Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus). It was there that people noticed we looked alike. We both had long, curly, dirty blond hair and a similar build. Bernhard still laughs how often people would approach him and ask, “Hey Bobby, can I have your autograph!” It didn’t take long before the reverse became much more common.

Courtesy of Bobby Clampett

That summer of ’82, Bernhard failed to qualify for the British Open at Troon, and loaned me his caddie, Peter Coleman. We proved to be a good combination, as I went on to set the then 36-hole Open scoring record with a 67 and 66 that gave me a five-stroke lead. Unfortunately, I struggled on the weekend and finished four strokes behind Tom Watson.

In April 1985, Bernhard and I had made a date to play a practice round together on Tuesday at 10 a.m. at Hilton Head, which is the week after the Masters. I had not qualified for the Masters that year, and when Bernhard won, I wasn’t sure he would remember. But true to Bernhard, he showed up at 9:55 a.m., a big entourage following the first No. 1 player on the Sony Rankings, which would become the Official World Golf Rankings. Several tour players asked to play with us, but we politely told them our group was full. We both liked it that way because then we could get some good work done. There would be more time to hit extra shots, especially around the green.

Not only have discipline and perseverance played a very important role in Bernhard’s success as a golfer, his faith has given Bernhard a grounding and steadiness that explains the deepest “why” for what he does for a living and who he is as a person.  I’ve never seen Bernhard upset or angry. I’ve never seen him throw a club. I’ve never seen him treat a human being unkindly. I’ve never even seen him raise his voice at his children. He lives his life in a very consistent fashion, full of routine, discipline and a focus on healthy things. He gets his eight hours of sleep every night, he works out everyday, he drinks his vitamin smoothie every morning and reads his daily devotional.  No wonder his golf game is so consistent. It is a mirror of his life.

When I think of Bernhard, the word “humility” always comes to mind. He fully appreciates everything good that ever happens to him. I believe that the fear of being poor again has served Bernhard well and explains partially why he works so hard at his golf.  He’s always thinking about ways to get better. It also explains why he never quits. I’ve never seen Bernhard not give a shot 100 percent, no matter what. He could be missing the cut, in the middle of a bad slump, and he’s still giving every shot his all.

Looking at Bernhard’s success, my opinion is that his character has been the leading contributor. How this carries over to his golf game gives us five key principles that we can all benefit from to improve our own games:

1. Analyse your game
Bernhard isolates the variables of his game and studies each one. He knows well his strengths and weaknesses, and practices his weaknesses the most. Over the last two years, he had to figure out how to adapt to the “no anchoring” policy set by the USGA and R&A. He made an inordinate effort trying at least a dozen different styles of putting before settling on the one he uses now, the closest to his putting form before the anchor ban. No one makes a higher percentage of six-foot putts in the game currently than Bernhard. Perhaps that missed six-footer at the 1991 Ryder Cup has motivated him to never let that happen again!

RELATED: Why is Bernhard Langer guilty until proven innocent on anchoring?

2. Analyze the course
Bernhard, along with his caddie, Terry Holt, out-prepare other players when it comes to charting the course and detailing the greens. They both work separately with their notes, then come together when playing the course. In 2013, I encouraged Bernhard to play the First Tee Open at Pebble Beach, a tournament he hadn’t played since his rookie year on the PGA Tour Champions. Bernhard knew I was knowledgeable about the course, so we played a practice round together. After the round, we headed back to my house where Bernhard sat at the dining room table with his yardage book and mine. My wife and I had to leave for a dinner, so we left Bernhard by himself, working at the dining table. When we returned four hours later, Bernhard was still at the table. “Where do you think the grain is on the back left of the 17th green?” he asked. That was a classic Bernhard moment!

3. Match your clubs with your swing
Bernhard spends a lot of time working on his equipment, especially when it comes to the driver. Over the years, driving was a weak point in his game and explained his lack of success on the narrow fairways of the U.S. Open, PGA Championships and British Open. In addition to refining his swing after turning 50, he has found a driver configuration that allows him to work the ball both ways, and launch at just the right trajectory (12.5 degrees) and produce just the right spin rate (2300 rpm).

4. Perfect your short game
Bernhard spends a lot of time chipping around the greens and hitting bunker shots in practice rounds. He is continually working on how to best use the bounce of the wedge, creating the ideal angle of attack to increase consistency around the greens.

5. Focus on impact
Bernhard knows his swing style is a bit unusual and he doesn’t care. His focus is on his impact. He is always aware of his angle of attack, his path, his clubface and where he is hitting the ball on the face. His swing adjustments are always related to creating better impact. He exemplifies what it means to be an impact-oriented player.

Of course, the brilliance of Bernhard Langer goes beyond his greatness as a golfer. He is also one of the best humans I’ve ever known.

The post The Bernhard Langer I know appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Jaime Diaz
There’s been a lot of theorising lately that Western civilisation is going through the “post-truth” era. The supporting evidence from the world of golf could be the current controversy over whether Bernhard Langer is anchoring.

It’s not that a game that so values honour and integrity is being plagued by public lies and blatant spinning to the same extent as the general culture. But there has been a noticeable eroding of the once almost unquestioned presumption that players are telling the truth. It seems as if—from charges of PED use, to taking drops in the right place, to correctly marking balls, to anchoring—golfers don’t quite believe each other like they used to.

Ensnared in this evolving perception are Langer and Scott McCarron, who have continued to use a long putter despite the USGA and R&A’s 2016 ban on using an anchored stroke. Each golfer vehemently maintains that by holding their top hand away their body and keeping it away during the stroke, they have legally adjusted to the new rule.

However, it’s easy to find fellow PGA Tour Champions players who will contend, off the record, that in the cases of Langer and McCarron, there is no perceptible daylight between their top hand and their chests when they putt. Some of these players believe that top hand brushing against clothing constitutes anchoring. It amounts to a substantial group of peers who feel there is enough visual evidence to warrant a strong suspicion that the two players are illegally anchoring.

Other objections to the methods of Langer and McCarron are founded in the language of Rule 14-1b, which in prohibiting anchoring states, in “Note 1”, the following: “The club is anchored ‘directly’ when the player intentionally holds the club or a gripping hand in contact with any part of his body, except that the player may hold the club or a gripping hand against a hand or forearm.”

It is the word “intentionally” that led Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee, who considers Langer’s and McCarron’s putting methods “questionable.” to deduce that anchorers have a built in “get out of jail free” card.

“And intent, I think there is apprehension on the governing body’s part not to ruffle feathers further,” Chamblee told Golf World’s Tim Rosaforte, cutting seven letters off the key word. “When it’s time to dig in, they’re reluctant to do so. Their acquiescence is to pass this rule, but the only violation is the intent to break this rule. … Basically what the USGA is saying is, ‘If you can live with cheating, then fine. If you can sleep with yourself, then fine.’

However, PGA Tour Champions rules official Brian Claar told Golf Channel that the word “intentionally” was put in the rule to protect a player from being penalized in the rare case of an accidental slip or strong wind during the putting stroke pushing the hand against the body.

Accusations, or suggestions of cheating in golf are always startling, especially when they involve prominent players. Langer has been dominating the senior circuit for years, as much at age 59 as ever. This year he is ranked second in putting average, as he was last year. McCarron, who has won four times on the 50 and over tour, is currently second to Langer on in the Charles Schwab Cup and ranks third in putting. At the Constellation Senior Players Championship two weeks ago, with unrest over the inssue among some their peers, they finished 1-2, with Langer giving up a lead late to McCarron.

It’s worth noting that there is a third player who made the same adjustment with the long putter as Langer and McCarron—Billy Mayfair. But the 50-year-old journeyman, whose T-9 in Wales marked his best finish on the PGA Tour Champions, has not been publicly questioned.

Phil Inglis/Getty Images
Despite the whispers, Langer has won five of his last 10 senior major starts, and enjoyed the latest with his wife Vikki (left) and daughters Christina and Jackie

Will Langer’s win Sunday at Senior British Open in Wales douse or intensify the controversy? It marked his third senior major victory of this season and his record 10th total. Langer is also the only player to have won all five senior majors, and with his 33rd official career senior victory, he would seem to have a shot at Hale Irwin’s once considered unapproachable record of 45.

RELATED: Langer cruises to Senior British Open title

His additional bona fides would appear impeccable. Langer is a Hall of Famer, a former World No. 1 with two majors and 42 victories on the European Tour, a Ryder Cup stalwart as a player and winning captain. His doggedness has enabled him to overcome the putting yips four times, and his legendary attention to detail gained him a reputation as one of the game’s slowest players. He applied those traits to his adjustment after the anchoring ban, saying it took him four to six months to get comfortable with keeping his knuckle away from his body. He is also known for being deeply religious. His integrity as a golfer has always been above reproach.

Langer, who says the accusations have been “hurtful,” insists he is following the new rule to the letter. He and McCarron have both checked with rules officials to make sure they are not anchoring and have been told repeatedly they are not in violation of the rule.

In a joint statement earlier this month with the USGA and McCarron, Langer said: “I believe in honesty and integrity, and I could not live with myself if I broke the rule and did not incur the penalty. I’m certain that I’m not anchoring the putter and that my putting stroke is not violating the Rules of Golf.” For his part, McCarron said: “I’d like to emphatically say that I do not anchor my hand, arm or club against my body during my putting stroke.”

Most importantly, the USGA issued this clearance, which made a point of addressing the subject of loose clothing: “We are confident that Rule has been applied fairly and consistently and have seen no evidence of a player breaking the Rule, which does not prohibit a hand or club to touch a player’s clothing in making a stroke.”

Langer, predictably, has mostly remained stoic. Recently, perhaps to reduce confusion among his peers, he has stopped “anchoring” in his preparatory practice strokes. But when pressed in Wales, he told The Telegraph: “It’s human to be jealous, let’s put it that way. If I was 180th on the money list, I don’t think anybody would be talking about it. But I’ve been No. 1 the last few years.” Fair point, given that Mayfair has escaped public scrutiny.

Bottom line, this controversy should stop. Perhaps the ruling bodies should be more precise with how “intentionally” is meant to apply to Rule 14-1b. Perhaps distributing some high-definition close-ups of the movement Langer’s and McCarron’s top hands as they putt could be helpful and even definitive. But until then, there’s nothing more to discuss. Langer and McCarron—whose version of events as individual players (in the absence of definitive evidence) are to be believed over the accusations of another player according to The Rules of Golf—both firmly contend they don’t anchor. And the rules officials—the final arbiters of the rules—say they don’t anchor. End of story.

There are those who believe that Langer and McCarron are being unfair to the other players by coming so close to a violation. As one PGA Tour Champions competitor told me, “Why are they putting us in this position?”

But the real question is, “Why are fellow players putting Langer and McCarron in this position?” As a society, we might be the “post-truth” era, but as golfers, we should never relinquish the game’s fundamental trust in the player.

The post Why is Bernhard Langer guilty until proven innocent? appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

While the USGA has come to Langer’s defense, many prominent voices continue to cast aspersions on Langer (and to a lesser extent, Scott McCarron). Speaking at Royal Porthcawl ahead of this week’s Senior Open Championship, the two-time Masters champ sounds fed up with the matter.

“I personally don’t understand it because I’m a man of integrity and the last thing I want to do is break rules and be known as cheating or something,” Langer said. “I mean, that’s the very last thing I want.

“What’s even stranger is that I have conferred with the USGA rules officials, with the Champions Tour officials, on a regular basis…And then you have a few people that come up on whatever it is, Twitter or somewhere else, and questioning my integrity, which is really hurtful. “

But Langer said he plans on continue to employ his current stroke, and offered his thoughts on why this vendetta is aimed his way.

“It’s human to be jealous,” Langer said. “If I was No. 180 on the Money List, I don’t think anybody would be talking about it. But I’ve been No. 1 the last few years on a regular basis, and now McCarron has a lot of success, as well. We’re actually No. 1 and 2 on the Champions Tour. So you’re going to have people, you know, being jealous or whatever you want to call it.”

Langer is shooting for this third career Senior Open title this week.

The post Bernhard Langer sounds fed up with the cheating accusations surrounding his putting stroke appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.