By Alex Myers
Bernhard Langer wrapped up a record sixth Charles Schwab Cup title on Sunday. He also crossed a ridiculous career earnings milestone on the PGA Tour Champions. Well, sort of.

We add the qualifier because, technically, bonuses earned for the senior circuit’s season-long race don’t officially count toward a player’s career earnings. But that doesn’t make the mark Langer reached any less impressive—or the absurd amount of money he’s earned since turning 50 any less real.

Officially, Langer has now earned $31,908,626 in his incredible PGA Tour Champions career, which started in 2007. That’s just about three times what he made ($10,759,526) during his PGA Tour career that includes winning two green jackets. (Yes, he did a lot of damage on the European Tour as well, but he’s still made 324 career PGA Tour starts.)

As if that’s not amazing enough, Langer’s $8.2 million in Schwab Cup bonuses actually puts him over the $40 million mark. Yep, $40 MILLION. Again, as a senior golfer!

To put that in context, Langer’s senior career earnings total (again, using the unofficial $40,108,626 figure) would put him No. 25 on the all-time PGA Tour list, ahead of guys like Brooks Koepka, Patrick Reed and Henrik Stenson. And this is from playing on a tour where the average purse is about one quarter of what the young guns play for each week.

“I’m just overwhelmed, you know, at 64 to win this thing six times,” Langer told reporters at the Charles Schwab Championship on Sunday. “It will probably be my last one, I’m almost sure of that, but it’s very, very special.”

Whether it’s Langer’s last hurrah remains to be seen, but what’s already clear is that staying fit has paid off for the German. And it’s paid off very (very) well.

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By Ryan Herrington
You’ll be forgiven if you don’t quickly put a face with the name of Steven Alker, the leader after the first round of the PGA Tour Champions’ Dominion Energy Charity Classic.

The New Zealander played just three full seasons on the PGA Tour spread (2003, 2015 and 2017), and the last of his 86 starts came at the 2017 Wyndham Championship. Prior to turning 50 in July and being eligible to play on the PGA Tour Champions, Alker was competing on the Korn Ferry Tour, making 29 starts in the 2020-21 season with just one top-10 finish to show for it.

And yet with an opening-round bogey-free 63 at the Country Club of Virginia in Richmond, Alker is the surprise leader of the first event in the Charles Schwab Cup Playoffs, a spot most assumed would be held by Phil Mickelson. The tournament’s defending champion has won three of his four starts on the senior circuit, but surprisingly could only muster an opening 71 and sits eight shots back of Alker in a tie for 31st.

That Alker would find himself in this spot is a pretty amazing story of great play at an opportune time. Upon turning 50, Alker had no status on the PGA Tour Champions. He earned a spot into the field at the Boeing Classic in August via a Monday qualifier and went on to finish T-7 that week in Washington state. The top-10 finish got him a spot in the next event, the Ally Challenge, in which he finished third and once again got into the next week’s event. Alker did this four more times, playing in seven tournaments overall, breaking 70 in 13 of 21 rounds and earning $499,707. That was enough to get to 55th place in the Charles Schwab Cup standings and qualify for the Dominion.

“Well, it’s a new chapter for me coming from Korn Ferry and playing with those young guys; big, strong, hitting it forever. So in places I was competitive out there, but I’m kind of maybe a little more competitive out here,” Alker said on Friday after grabbing his first lead after any round on the PGA Tour Champions. “But as I said, my game’s just coming around at the right time. You’ve still got to play golf and shoot the scores. These guys, they’re good so you’ve got to shoot some good scores. It’s just a combination of game coming together and just really wanting to play out here.”

While his best career finish in the PGA Tour was 17th at the 2003 Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines, Alker did win four times on the Korn Ferry Tour. Whether he can hang around the leader board through the weekend in Virginia isn’t entirely certain, but he looks likely to play his way into the next CSC Playoff event, where he has to be in the top 54 in the points list to advance.

That said, Alker is thinking bigger.

“Every guy wants to win out here, it’s huge,” he said. “I haven’t won for a while, but we’ve got two days to go. Out here I find with the three days, you’ve got to get a hot start, otherwise you’re kind of on the back foot of it. Only two to go. It’s kind of like playing the weekend really now, just keep going at it.”

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By John Strege
Scott McCarron won the season-long Charles Schwab Cup points race and its $1 million prize on Sunday while holding a glass of wine and watching on a clubhouse television.

More precisely, Jeff Maggert won it for him.

“Are you kidding me?” McCarron said when he saw Maggert hole out his second shot from the fairway on the third playoff hole to defeat Retief Goosen and win the Charles Schwab Cup Championship, the PGA Tour Champions season finale.

Had Goosen won the tournament, he also would have won the Schwab Cup points race. He would have been looking at a four-footer for birdie had Maggert not delivered a hole-out eagle from 123 yards on the 17th hole at Phoenix Country Club.

“He [McCarron] owes me some red wine or something,” Maggert said. “Congrats to Scott. He played some great golf this year. Hats off to him.”

No chance was the most likely chance that Goosen had of winning the season-long Schwab Cup before the week began. The 50-year-old World Golf Hall of Famer needed to win the tournament and for McCarron, the points leader going in, to finish in a three-way tie for 12th or worse. Additionally, Jerry Kelly, second in points, had to finish tied for fifth or worse.

McCarron, who led the Schwab Cup points standings for most of the year, cooperated by finishing in a tie for 27th. And Kelly did, too, by tying for 12th. But Goosen’s putter and Maggert did not cooperate.

Goosen closed with a seven-under-par 64 on Sunday that included three birdies in his final four holes to get into a playoff. He could have won that playoff on the first extra hole, but missed a four-foot birdie putt for the victory.

With darkness encroaching and threatening to send the playoff to a Monday finish, Goosen hit his approach shot from a bunker to the 17th green to four feet.

Maggert’s approach landed a few feet short of the hole and the ball bounced into the cup, setting off a wild celebration in the clubhouse.

Right. On. Target. ?

From the middle of the fairway! ?

@Jeff_Maggert has won the @SchwabCupFinale! ? pic.twitter.com/nfg2BxmjYJ

— PGA TOUR Champions (@ChampionsTour) November 11, 2019

The celebration would soon be joined by Maggert, 55, who won for the first time since 2015. It was his sixth PGA Tour Champions victory.

“I’ve seen it happen, but I never I thought it would happen to me in my life,” Maggert said. “Obviously, I didn’t make a lot of putts last two days, but sometimes you don’t need the putter to win.”

McCarron’s reaction in addition to his clubhouse celebration? “Jeff Maggert, my favourite player on the PGA Tour Champions.”

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By John Strege
Bernhard Langer still has yet to slow down, though he might be running out of reasons to sustain his torrid pace.

His latest victory, in the Oasis Championship in Boca Raton, Fla., on Sunday, enabled him to break Hale Irwin’s record for career earnings on the PGA Tour Champions. His $255,000 first-prize money raised his career total to $27,196,504, $75,590 ahead of Irwin.

Langer, 61, took a one-stroke lead into the final round on the Old Course at Broken Sound, shot a seven-under-par 65 to equal the low score of the day, and won by five. Marco Dawson finished second. Gary Nicklaus, meanwhile, closed with a 73 and tied for 51st in his debut on the 50-and-older circuit after turning pro for the second time in his career in the last month.

It was Langer’s 39th senior victory, moving him within six of one of two likely remaining targets for him: Irwin’s record 45 senior victories. The other might be Mike Fetchick’s record as the oldest winner on the senior tour, 63.

The Charles Schwab Cup winner in four of the last five years and the senior player of the year five straight years, Langer is off to a fast start in pursuit of extending those streaks. In two tournaments, he has a third and a first.

Langer played a bogey-free round and only made a single bogey in 54 holes, that coming at 17 on Saturday, after which he made an eagle to take the overnight lead.

“It was a very solid round,” he said. “What I was really happy with was my short game. My putter worked very well all week, and my short game in general. I think I made only two bogeys [only one, in fact] for the whole week. In these windy conditions on this golf course, that’s exceptional. I’m very, very blessed.”

This was a rare home-game win for Langer, who lives a 10-minute drive away, when the three traffic signals between home and the course are green. Of course, there is nothing stopping him these days.

Not only was it a win at home, it was a win as well for daughter Jackie, her first while caddying for her father.

“It’s amazing,” he said. “It’s always fun having my kids caddie for me. Jackie had a couple of close calls last year, so she finally got her first W. We’re very proud of her.”

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By Joel Beall

Grayson Murray enjoyed a successful rookie campaign in 2017, winning the Barbasol Championship and reaching the third stage of the FedEx Cup playoffs. Despite this performance, the 24-year-old’s name was frequently mentioned for reasons other than his play. He called out Bryson DeChambeau for an injury WD, chided his fellow pros for their boring social-media accounts and beefed with players on the European Tour regarding world ranking points. Clearly Murray does not adhere to the “Rookies should be seen, not heard” adage.

Murray again made waves over the weekend via Twitter, this time for comments aimed at the PGA Tour Champions. In response to the Golf Channel’s Will Gray, who pointed out the shortcomings of the Charles Schwab Cup point system, Murray said in a now-deleted tweet, “Does anyone really care is the real question…those guys were relevant 10 plus years ago.” Murray further stated that, while he agreed the senior players laid a foundation for the tour of today, the circuit loses a lot of money, forcing the PGA to subsidize it.

After several outlets took Murray to task for his opinions, he issued an apology on Tuesday, specifically for any disrespect mined from his remarks.

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Bernhard Langer’s hold on the Charles Schwab Cup was never tenuous, at least until he tripped on the final lap and caused the PGA Tour Champions to stumble as well.

This is not to shortchange the man who beat him, Kevin Sutherland. By virtue of his victory in the Charles Schwab Cup Championship on Sunday and the system the tour has in place for the season-long points competition, Sutherland not only won the tournament, but the Charles Schwab Cup and its $1 million bonus, as well.

But here’s the rub. It was Sutherland’s only victory of the year, indeed his only PGA Tour Champions win in four years, while Langer won seven times this year, with two of the seven coming in the three-tournament Schwab Cup playoffs.

Two more points to consider. Langer, 60, would have won his fourth straight Schwab Cup had he reordered his victories in the playoff events. He won the wrong two. And with Langer’s tie for 12th despite closing with a seven-under par 64 at Phoenix Country Club on Sunday, Sutherland could have won the Schwab Cup even had he finished second or third in the tournament on Sunday and gone winless for the season.

“I think it needs adjusting,” Langer said of a system that includes resetting Schwab Cup points after each of the first two playoff events. “I do, personally, because you could have somebody win the whole thing that hasn’t won a tournament all year and I’m not sure that’s ideal. But I was on the [PGA Tour Champions policy] board. We said we’re going to try this out. I’m not sure if it’s perfect. It’s maybe like the FedExCup. They had to adjust it two or three times to make it interesting but also make it a little fair.

“It was never meant to be fair. It was meant to be playoffs. Everybody in the field was given a chance to win. Is it fair? No, it’s not, but that’s how it is right now.”

The crowds acknowledged Langer’s hugely successful 2017 season as he approached the 18th green in the season finale. (Chris Condon/Getty Images)

So be it. The rules were the rules and Sutherland won according to them.

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This is not to shortchange the man who beat him, Kevin Sutherland. By virtue of his victory in the Charles Schwab Cup Championship on Sunday and the system the tour has in place for the season-long points competition, Sutherland not only won the tournament, but the Charles Schwab Cup and its $1 million bonus, as well.

But here’s the rub. It was Sutherland’s only victory of the year, indeed his only PGA Tour Champions win in four years, while Langer won seven times this year, with two of the seven coming in the three-tournament Schwab Cup playoffs.

Two more points to consider. Langer, 60, would have won his fourth straight Schwab Cup had he reordered his victories in the playoff events. He won the wrong two. And with Langer’s tie for 12th despite closing with a seven-under par 64 at Phoenix Country Club on Sunday, Sutherland could have won the Schwab Cup even had he finished second or third in the tournament on Sunday and gone winless for the season.

“I think it needs adjusting,” Langer said of a system that includes resetting Schwab Cup points after each of the first two playoff events. “I do, personally, because you could have somebody win the whole thing that hasn’t won a tournament all year and I’m not sure that’s ideal. But I was on the [PGA Tour Champions policy] board. We said we’re going to try this out. I’m not sure if it’s perfect. It’s maybe like the FedExCup. They had to adjust it two or three times to make it interesting but also make it a little fair.

“It was never meant to be fair. It was meant to be playoffs. Everybody in the field was given a chance to win. Is it fair? No, it’s not, but that’s how it is right now.”

Chris Condon/Getty Images
The crowds acknowledged Langer’s hugely successful 2017 season as he approached the 18th green in the season finale.

So be it. The rules were the rules and Sutherland won according to them.

“We might revisit it in the future,” Langer said.

Sutherland, to his credit, won for the first time, in 78 senior starts, when it counted most monetarily. His take for the day was $1.44 million, which included $440,000 for his victory in the tournament itself.

“It is amazing,” he said, staring at the Schwab Cup he was holding. “And I know the list of champions on here is incredible, too. I’m the luckiest man in the world. Every time I come out here and play I can’t believe they let me do this.”

They let him do this, of course, because he has a quality golf game, notwithstanding his previous inability to win. He has finished in the top 10 in nearly half his senior starts, 38 in all, including 15 of 23 starts this year.

Victory, one might have reckoned, was imminent.

“I played really well all year and I just couldn’t find a way to get a win,” he said. “So to win this tournament, it’s unbelievable. I’m sure in a couple days it will sink in a little bit, but right now it just seems like I’m not even sure it really happened, I keep pinching myself. It feels good and it’s been a long time since I won a tournament. I haven’t won since 2002 [WGC-Accenture] Match Play, so 15 years. So it feels good.”

Sutherland, with a birdie at the 16th hole, broke from a crowded leader board that at various times included Vijay Singh, Lee Janzen, David Frost, Brandt Jobe and Paul Goydos, but not Langer.

Michael Cohen/Getty Images

He finished with a bogey-free five-under-par 66 that gave him a 54-hole score of 15-under 198, one ahead of Singh and Janzen.

“I hit the ball really well today,” he said. “I played fantastic. I drove it great. I tweaked my driver and hit it great this week.”

As for Langer, he is a cinch to win tour player of the year honors for the seventh time. And even at 60, he isn’t looking for the easy chair, as he noted when asked his goals going forward.

“Just the main goal is to improve myself, to have a better technique or to have better chipping, putting, whatever it is,” he said. “If I can continue to improve, I’m going to have a good chance to win tournaments, to win majors and to be one of the top five or 10 guys out here.”

Keep improving. That’s a worthwhile goal for any player on the senior tour. It, too, ought to be goal No. 1 for those charged with the Charles Schwab Cup points system that let them down on Sunday.

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By John Strege
The indomitable Bernhard Langer was forced to work overtime on Sunday, but still delivered a victory in the PowerShares QQQ Championship, his second straight win and third in his last four starts.

Langer, 60, holed a 30-foot double-breaker from an upper tier on the 18th green on the second playoff hole at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, Calif., to defeat Miguel Angel Jimenez.

He has now won the first two Charles Schwab Cup playoff events and will go for a sweep in the season-finale Charles Schwab Cup Championship in two weeks at Phoenix Country Club.

“It puts me at a great mind, at great ease,” he said. “I’m swinging the club fairly well. There were a few irons shots that leaked to the right and I’ll try to figure out why that is so. I think I know. And the rest of the game is pretty solid.”

Indeed, the victory was his seventh of the season, extending his career-high, and the 36th of his PGA Tour Champions career.

Langer nearly won on the last hole of regulation, when his 15-foot birdie putt caught a piece of the hole and did a 360 without falling.

On the first playoff hole, Langer had a similar putt to the one with which he won, but missed it to the right. On his second attempt, it went in dead center.

“The first one almost went straight,” Langer said. “The second one was a little different angle and We read it about a cup out and it broke nicely at the end.”

Langer and Jimenez, who along with David Toms were co-leaders through 36 holes, closed with the best rounds of the day, five-under par 67s, while Toms, a senior rookie still in search of a maiden tour victory, shot a 69 and finished third.

Meanwhile, Langer has to be the favorite to win a fourth straight Charles Schwab Cup and its $1 million bonus and a fifth cup overall. However, a points reset after the PowerShares QQQ Championship allows any one of the top five in the standings to win the cup with a victory in two weeks.

Langer leads the standings and is followed by Scott McCarron, Kenny Perry, Jimenez and Kevin Sutherland.

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By John Strege

The effort to weaken Bernhard Langer’s stronghold on the Charles Schwab Cup was strengthened instead, when he eagled the final hole to win the opening of three playoff events, the Dominion Energy Charity Classic, on Sunday.

Langer, who has won three straight Charles Schwab Cups and four overall, began the final round with a three-stroke lead, but struggled with his putter, until the tournament was on the line.

He came to the par-5 18th hole at the Country Club of Virginia in Richmond, Va., trailing Scott Verplank by a stroke. Langer hit a fairway-wood second shot to 15 feet left of the hole and made the putt to wrest the victory from Verplank.

“Played really good this week,” he said. “Didn’t miss a fairway, missed only one green the first day. Similar the second day. Made no bogeys. Today was a little more shaky. I was a little bit out of rhythm. The putter was ice cold. That was the difference. I finally made one when it really mattered.”

The victory was the sixth of the season, a personal best for the 60-year-old who seems to be getting better with age. It also was the 35th win of the PGA Tour Champions career.

Langer had a final-round two-under 70 for a 54-hole total of 16-under-par 200. It was the 56th time in 64 rounds he’s posted an under-par score this year.

Verplank closed with a six-under-par 66, but came up short in his bid to win for the first time on the PGA Tour Champions.

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