By Dave Shedloski
The course looked familiar. The course of action not so much.

Hale Irwin watched portions of the 120th U.S. Open with a mixture of appreciation and apprehension. Irwin was what you might call a prototypical U.S. Open player, one who adhered to a formula of precision and patience, and he won the championship three times, including the 1974 edition at Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, N.Y. Irwin was the last man standing that year, surviving the famed “Massacre at Winged Foot” with a seven-over 287 total.

On Sunday, Irwin observed a different kind of massacre. Bryson DeChambeau, swinging all out and eschewing caution, pummeled the venerable West Course at Winged Foot and won by six strokes over another bomber, Matthew Wolff, with a six-under-par 274 total.

The perceived casualty, Irwin thought, was some of the essence of the game.

He wasn’t trying to sound curmudgeonly or be critical of DeChambeau. In fact, he commended him on the victory. “It was a dominant performance, absolutely,” Irwin said by phone from his home in St. Louis. “How could you not be impressed? Far and away he played the best.”

But how far DeChambeau and many of the top contenders hit it, without, apparently, a copious amount of concern for direction, had the Hall of Famer shaking his head a bit. DeChambeau won while hitting just 23 fairways, fewest by a U.S. Open champion since 1981.

Hale Irwin, shown competing at Winged Foot in 1974, says the premium placed on accuracy has been lost in the modern game. (John D. Hanlon)

Like the late Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, Irwin, 75, has long been a proponent of rolling back the golf ball.

“That’s one of the most staggering things I think I took away from this week, was that hitting fairways didn’t seem like a concern,” he said. “By comparison, hitting the fairway was everything in 1974 or you paid the price.

“The rough looked serious enough this week, but obviously wasn’t because everybody’s getting the ball out and on the greens. It’s just such a strange feeling to see that accuracy is kind of out the window. There’s only two ingredients in the game of golf, and it’s distance and direction. And distance has all but displaced direction, big time.”

Irwin, who won 20 PGA Tour titles and a record 45 more on the PGA Tour Champions, isn’t against technology. But he believes there has to be limits, “or we’re going to lose our connection to the previous eras,” he said. “I take nothing away from Bryson. I commend him on the win. I’ll be among the first to write him a letter of congratulations … and then I’m going to ask him who his trainer is. What he’s done fitness-wise is just mind-boggling.

“But I think he’s got everybody shaking their heads as to where we are going with the game of golf now,” Irwin added. “Have we lost our traditional comparisons of eras? I always thought that’s been a part of the allure of the game is that regardless of technology, you could compare Bobby Jones to Ben Hogan to Jack Nicklaus to Tiger Woods. I’d hate to see us lose that connection with players of this era and beyond.

“We need to maybe stop and think about what we want the future to be. And what’s the best thing for the game. I’m not saying I have the answers. I just think we should be asking those questions.”

The post Hale Irwin applauds Bryson DeChambeau, but worries about golf’s future appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By John Sterge
Even with life on hold, the clock keeps running, and for those of a certain age it seems as though it is running sprints. Psychologists call it proportional theory, noting that for a 5-year-old, a year takes forever, but for a 55-year-old, a year is a considerably smaller percentage of his lifespan and passes in a blur.

What does this have to do with golf? Maybe everything in the case of Bernhard Langer and his pursuit of what once seemed an unattainable record: Hale Irwin’s 45 career victories on the PGA Tour Champions.

Langer reached win No. 41 in early March, only to watch months race by without his even having a chance at No. 42 and unable to stop the clock. There are no timeouts in golf.

The senior tour’s COVID-19 stoppage already has erased eight tournaments from the 2020 schedule. Given Langer’s torrid start to 2020—four top-six finishes in five tournaments—it is not unreasonable to have expected him to contend in many of those eight, maybe most, and even possibly winning one or two.

Then there’s this: Time, not an ally before the hiatus, is notably less of one now. Langer is 62 and closing fast on 63, his birthday coming only a few weeks after the senior tour is scheduled to resume at the end of July. No player has ever won a senior tour event past his 63rd birthday. The oldest winner ever was Mike Fetchick, who on his 63rd birthday won the Hilton Head Seniors Invitational in 1985.

Time is short, though Langer doesn’t see it that way. He is too grounded to have ever considered taking a flight of fancy in the first place.

“Several years ago, looking at Hale’s 45 wins, I thought, ‘This will never be broken,’” Langer said recently in a phone interview from his South Florida home. [Photo below is Irwin winning No. 45.] Langer conceded that “the likelihood increases” with each win, but it has not altered his way of thinking.

“My main goal is not to break Hale Irwin’s record. My goal is to be the best that Bernhard Langer can be. My goal is to stay healthy, to enjoy the game and be the best player I can be and work on my weaknesses.”

Chris Condon
Hale Irwin celebrates his 45th PGA Tour Champions win at the 2007 MasterCard Championship at Hualalai.

A World Golf Hall of Fame member whose resume includes two Masters victories, Langer has been among the rare seniors who has aged well. A few months before his 50th birthday, he lost the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial in a playoff. He has made the cut in four of the last six Masters, including a tie for eighth in 2014 and a tie for 24th in 2018.

“People think it’s just one thing,” Langer said of his longevity. “It’s a lot of things, as you can imagine. First of all you’ve got to be healthy to do the thing you want to do and to swing the club the way you want to. Fortunately, I’ve not had a lot of major setbacks or surgeries. I’ve enjoyed working out all my life.

“At the same time, I have fairly good genes from my parents, and I have a good team around me. I’ve worked with Willy Hoffman from Germany since my 18th birthday, so 44 years of that is probably beneficial.

“You’re always trying to improve. You have to make changes, but there are small changes that can bear good results. Sometimes people change dramatically and it doesn’t work out. They go through different swing coaches and two years later they fall off the planet. I’ve been fortunate with Willy. He had the foresight in telling me what to do. Even at 20 and 30 he said, ‘I want you to be playing good in your 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s.’ I said, ‘I don’t really care about that right now,’ but he mentioned this over and over.”

Aging, nonetheless, has assessed a toll, though Langer’s ability to acknowledge it has helped diminish the cost. The years have whittled away yardage off the tee, “but I’m trying to compensate with better iron play and chipping and putting,” he said.

His focus occasionally wanders, he said, unlike his early years, so Langer has worked on mitigating the effects with a mental on-and-off switch, “so you have enough in the tank when you need it.” The sum of the parts has been a long post-PGA Tour career that was not wholly unexpected, but still was somewhat of a surprise to him.

“I was hoping to be one of the top three or five players out there for a number of years,” he said. “I had had a fairly good career up to that point. At 49-and-a-half, I was in a playoff at Fort Worth, so I was still competitive. I was hoping to be one of the better players. But I had no idea it would turn out the way it turned out.

“The stats say most guys win between 50 and 54 or 55, and by the time they turn 60 nobody wins. I was trying to be one of those exceptions. Tom Watson was one of those exceptions. So was Sam Snead and Hale Irwin.”

But extending exceptionalism in a career that already has surpassed its use-by date will be a challenge amplified by the hiatus and the unending stream of talented 50-year-olds signing on, including Ernie Els, already a senior winner, and Jim Furyk, who just turned 50.

Time is on their side, while for Langer and others of his generation, watching the days and weeks and months blow by at a pace that measures 15 on the Stimpmeter, it is more an obstacle than an ally.

The post Bernhard Langer’s pursuit of elusive record has gotten harder during hiatus—and why he’s not bothered appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

“How’d it go with Bernhard today?” I asked casually.

Kaymer shook his head. “It was amazing,” he said. “He’s 25 years older than I am and he hits it as far as I do. Sometimes farther. I’m not the longest hitter there is, but I hit it far enough. He left me with my mouth hanging open a few times.”

Langer is actually 27 years older than Kaymer and he’s been leaving people open-mouthed for a long time now. On Sunday, the 62-year-old did it again, birdieing nine of the first 17 holes to shoot an eight-under-par 65 (he decided to prove to people that he’s human by bogeying 18) that allowed him to come back from a three-shot deficit and win the Cologuard Classic in Tucson, his 41st title on the PGA Tour Champions.

The victory made it 14 straight years, dating to 2007, the year he turned 50, that Langer has won at least once on the tour for players 50-and-older. It left him four wins shy of Hale Irwin’s all-time record of 45 victories.

By any standard—except perhaps NBC’s Paul Azinger, who made it clear Sunday he thinks of any tour other than the PGA Tour as minor league—Langer is one of golf’s all-time greats. He won the Masters twice and has 111 wins worldwide in his remarkable career—though only three on the PGA Tour. Two of those came on consecutive weeks: the 1985 Masters and the Sea Pines-Heritage Classic on Hilton Head Island. Langer won 42 times on the European Tour and was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2002—five years before he turned 50 and began his remarkable run against the senior set.

Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images
Langer gets in a practice round with countryman Martin Kaymer at last year’s Masters.

Perhaps it was a harbinger when, two months after turning 50, he won the Administaff Small Business Classic by eight shots. He hasn’t looked back since then—11 of his 41 victories have been in senior majors and he has been the tour’s money leader 10 of the last 12 years. Scott McCarron finally broke Langer’s seven-year stranglehold on the money title last year; Langer settled for fourth, having only won twice in 2019 (one of the victories a major). After Langer’s victory in Tucson, he’s on top of this year’s money list, a spot he’s occupied for 134 of 285 weeks since 2008, his first full year among the seniors.

That’s a lot of numbers—most of them mind-boggling. But Langer’s career is about far more than numbers. It’s about a relentless will to stay at or near the top of the game through setbacks that could easily have been career-ending.

The first issue, which has been a part of his life since he was 18, are the putting yips. Langer, who turned pro at 15, has said he first remembers having the yips in his first days playing the European Tour while trying to adapt to fast greens in Portugal and Spain after growing up on slow greens in Germany. They have come back on three occasions since, forcing him to change grips and putters and attitude. Each time he’s been able to find the answer—including most recently in 2016 when the USGA and R&A banned the anchored stroke he’d used, forcing Langer to adjust to holding the long putter he’s used since 1997 away from his body.

There were those who believe that Langer and McCarron were still anchoring their putters even after the ban, but both have survived exhaustive investigations by the USGA that showed that they were not even though a casual glance might make it appear that they were.

Since the anchoring ban went into effect, Langer has won 15 times—including six majors—and won seven times in 2017. He even contended at the Masters in 2016—at age 58.

But even though the yips have been part of his life for more than 40 years, it may well be that Langer’s most impressive comeback came in the wake of the 1991 Ryder Cup. That was the infamous “War by the Shore” at Kiawah Island, which came down to the final singles match between Langer and, coincidentally enough, Irwin.

Langer had a six-foot par putt on the 18th green to win the match. That would have given Europe a 14-14 tie and allowed it to retain the Cup for the second straight time after winning it in 1985 and 1987. Langer, after stalking the putt for what felt like hours, read it as straight and hit it exactly the way he wanted to. But it swerved right at the last possible moment, leading to what might have been the wildest celebration in Ryder Cup history.

A lot of players would have been destroyed, or at least badly battered emotionally by that sort of miss on that sort of stage. Langer won in Stuttgart a week later. Eighteen months after that, he won his second Masters.

Langer became a born-again Christian not long after his first Masters victory in 1985. He is not, by nature, an expansive talker, but when he does speak about overcoming the yips and the miss at Kiawah, much of what he says goes back to his faith and his belief that the Ryder Cup was merely a golf competition between 24 players from both sides of the Atlantic giving their all to win. Nothing more. Nothing less. Not a war by any stretch.

Michael Cohen
Since the anchoring ban, Langer has won 15 of his 41 senior titles, including six majors.

Among the many sources of controversy and angry words that weekend was Steve Pate not playing in the singles matches. Pate had been injured in a car accident on Thursday before the start of the competition but came back to play on Saturday afternoon. Early Sunday morning, U.S. captain Dave Stockton informed European captain Bernard Gallacher that Pate couldn’t play. That meant David Gilford would sit out for Europe and the teams would split the point.

Almost everyone on the European side expressed the firm opinion that Pate was held out to ensure the U.S. would get a half-point from him. Not Langer.

“If a guy says he’s hurt and can’t play, or feels he’s going to do long-term damage by playing, that’s good enough for me,” was Langer’s comment.

Langer played on 10 European Ryder Cup teams and captained the Europeans to an 18½-9½ rout at Oakland Hills in 2004. He finished his Ryder Cup career with 24 points even though most people focus on the half-point not won at Kiawah.

Irwin’s last PGA Tour Champions victory, at age 61, came in January 2007—nine months before Langer’s first. Langer will turn 63 in August. Irwin admits there came a point where he felt that he’d lost his edge. It certainly hasn’t happened to Langer yet.

As for the argument about who is the greatest senior player of all, Irwin or Langer—let the last word come from Irwin.

“I think Bernhard is, probably, in my estimation, the best senior player to play the game,” he said.

No doubt, the next time Kaymer plays a practice round with Langer, he’ll be in awe of him.

Still.

The post Bernhard Langer doesn’t know when to quit—literally appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

“From the day I got there, it was evident that Hale wasn’t going to be heavily involved in (decisions), but he was heavily involved in playing great golf,” said Azinger. “He was the captain, but he let me captain.”

That was also the last time the playing captain role was attempted at the Presidents Cup (or any professional team competition as the Ryder Cup hasn’t had one since Arnold Palmer in 1963) until circumstances led Tiger Woods to resurrect the position for this year’s event.

It’s a bold choice, and the payoff is huge if it works. It’s also a decision that comes with challenges. For one thing, there’s the factor that Irwin found so easy: delegation. Tiger has a few more assistants to work with than Irwin had, and he’ll have to decide which responsibilities, if any, to cede to Steve Stricker, Fred Couples and Zach Johnson. Stricker, of course, is also the U.S. Ryder Cup captain for 2020, and was the victorious Presidents Cup captain in 2017. He might welcome the chance to influence lineups and observe chemistry, particularly in the pairs sessions.

“I don’t want to say the word ‘test,’ ” Stricker said last month when asked about trying strategies in Australia that might be used at Whistling Straits, “but we get to see how those pairings play out and how the guys get along with one another to see if it’s even a possibility at next year’s Ryder Cup.”

RELATED: A former European Ryder Cup captain offers this warning to the U.S. Presidents Cup team

If Tiger follows Irwin’s lead and empowers his assistants to make the big decisions, the problem of delegation could be easily resolved. Whether that’s his intent—or whether it’s in his personality—remains an open question. In comments made last week at the Hero World Challenge, it seems more like the system Woods has in mind is one where his assistants relay information to him when he’s otherwise occupied playing practice rounds before he makes the final choice. “I’m going to have to rely on what my guys say and what my vice-captains say,” he said, “and get a feel for what’s going on.”

PGA TOUR Photo Services
Hale Irwin leaned heavily on his assistant, Paul Azinger, to oversee captain’s duties while he was also playing for the American team in 1994.

The time commitments of a captain, too, could weigh on Tiger—far more than they would have for Irwin in 1994. Even if he delegates some or all of the decision-making, it won’t get him out of the opening ceremonies, press conferences and other media, fan and corporate obligations—such as Monday night’s launch event that came just hours after the team landed in Melbourne—that recent captains will tell you constitute a full-time job. (The media task, in particular, got harder with the Patrick Reed controversy, which is exactly the kind of early-week distraction he didn’t need.)

That’s in addition to the leadership role he’ll be expected to take, and indeed has taken thus far, with the other 11 players. A captain’s duties to his charges are manifold; they include elements as obvious as encouragement in the face of early difficulty, and as delicate as explaining his rationale to the players he benches. Collectively, these tasks require a lot of bandwidth, and it’s hard to imagine having to manage them all while maintaining the competitive concentration needed to win on the actual course.

With divided duties, Tiger would be wise to make it abundantly clear to his assistants what their roles are, and make sure that all the players understand the hierarchy. Who takes charge in team meetings? How much is an assistant allowed to “persuade” Tiger if there’s disagreement about the lineups? Who should players approach when they have a golf-specific or logistical concern that needs to be resolved.

There’s also the issue of when Tiger will play. My guess, which is no more than speculation, is that he’ll only play two of the first four sessions over the first three days, and will sit out Thursday four-ball to watch and evaluate 10 of the other 11 players before pairing himself with Justin Thomas in foursomes on Friday. No matter what he chooses, though, there are pitfalls. Take Saturday, with its two sessions: If he sits out in the morning, he won’t have much time to warm up for the afternoon, evaluate the morning wave and set lineups. But if he plays in the morning and sits out the afternoon, he’ll likely be ceding all lineup duties to his assistants, since they could be due before he finishes his match.

In 1994, Irwin was a committed player, and more of a figurehead as captain. That was his prerogative, he made it clear to Azinger and the others, and it worked. But in 2019, in our heightened media environment, there’s no such thing as a figurehead captain. Tiger’s responsibilities will follow him regardless of how he delegates the nuts-and-bolts tasks, and it will require heroic focus to do it all and still play well. His success this week could be a referendum on whether the dual role is feasible, and determine whether it’s ever tried again.

It’s the kind of responsibility that would crush a lesser player, but the good news is that nobody will be suited to juggling it all better than Tiger Woods. This is someone who has been an iconic figure since the moment he turned professional, and it’s hard to think of another figure in golf—no, in sports—who has been so adept at absorbing overwhelming attention outside the field of play and still delivering brilliant results when the pressure’s on.

The post Two hats, one man—Tiger’s challenge as a modern playing captain appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By John Strege
U.S. Presidents Cup Captain Tiger Woods announced his four captain’s picks Thursday, and the most newsworthy name among them is Tiger Woods. He will become the first playing captain of a Presidents Cup team in 25 years.

When Woods recently won the inaugural Zozo Championship by three strokes in a year in which he also won the Masters, the likelihood of his making himself a playing captain no doubt increased substantially. “I think the player got the captain’s attention,” he said then.

The last playing captain in a Presidents Cup was Hale Irwin in 1994.

As Captain, I’m going to choose Tiger Woods as the last player on the team. https://t.co/AR7zgDTJkZ

— Tiger Woods (@TigerWoods) November 8, 2019

RELATED: International Team captain Ernie Els goes for players on form and one, Jason Day, searching for his form

Woods also selected Tony Finau, Patrick Reed and Gary Woodland.

The eight players who played their way onto the team via points are Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Xander Schaufele, Patrick Cantlay, Justin Thomas, Matt Kuchar, Webb Simpson and Bryson DeChambeau.

The Presidents Cup will be played Dec. 12-15 at Royal Melbourne Golf Club in Victoria, Australia.

The post Tiger Woods uses one of four Presidents Cup captain’s picks on himself appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.