If you’re winning PGA Tour Champions majors at age 65, like Bernhard Langer did at the US Senior Open Sunday, by definition times have changed since you turned professional. Langer is cashing first-place checks in a remarkable sixth decade as a professional, dating all the way back to the 1975 German National Open, a tournament he won at age 17. That victory was so far back there’s no data on how much Langer won, but the DP World Tour does chronicle Langer’s take-home pay for winning his first event on the “big” tour—the 14,000 pounds he earned for defeating Brian Barnes by five in the 1980 Dunlop Masters.

That performance wasn’t dramatically different from the one Langer put on at the US Senior Open last week. Langer was up by as many as seven strokes on Sunday before finishing bogey-bogey-bogey to win by two over Steve Stricker. The first-place prize was a PGA Tour Champions record $720,000—bigger than Langer’s Masters winning cash-outs in 1985 ($126,000) and 1993 ($306,000) combined.

RELATED: How Bernhard Langer broke a record considered unbreakable.

To put Langer’s first European tour check-in perspective, two weeks ago, every player in the field at the US Open who missed the cut got $10,000 just for showing up. The Scotty Cameron putter Langer used to win the 1993 Masters—the first Cameron to be used to win a major—went for $59,097 at a 2021 auction. It’s doubtful Langer’s current Odyssey White Hot 2-Ball with an extended grip will ever get that much but given that Langer has now won more than $35 million just as a senior, he’s probably never going to need to unload it to pay his mortgage.

The post How Bernhard Langer’s first-place checks have increased during his six decades as a pro appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

It was to have evolved into a race against time for Bernhard Langer in his pursuit of Hale Irwin’s PGA Tour Champions record for victories, yet time stood no chance. Langer on Sunday, two months shy of his 66th birthday, posted his record 46th senior victory in a dominating manner, on the senior game’s biggest stage, the US Senior Open.

Players his age are not supposed to win. Irwin was 61 when he produced the last of his 45 senior victories. Until Langer came along, the oldest to win on the senior tour was Scott Hoch, at 63 years and five months. This victory by Langer at SentryWorld in Stevens Point, Wis., advanced that record for the fifth time.

And he did so while having to contend with Wisconsin’s favourite sons, Steve Stricker and Jerry Kelly, on their home turf. He carried a two-stroke lead over Kelly, three over Stricker, into the final round, and though he bogeyed his final three holes, he still won by two over Stricker, the runner-up, and three over Kelly.

“It’s been a long time coming, but I’m very, very happy,” Langer said. “Never thought it would happen at a US Senior Open, but I’m very thrilled that the record of 46 wins happened this week. It’s certainly one of the greatest tournaments we ever compete in, and to beat this field, where everybody was here, especially Stricker and Kelly on their home grounds, is a very special feeling. Very grateful.”

It was his record 12th senior major championship, to go with two Masters titles. It was his second US Senior Open victory, 13 years after his first. It also marked his record 11th season with multiple victories, his having won the Chubb Classic earlier this year.

Langer closed with a one-under-par 70 that largely was mistake-free until the closing holes. He completed 72 holes in seven-under 277. Stricker, seeking a third straight major championship this season, shot a two-under 69, while Kelly posted an even-par 71.

At the end of play on Saturday, Langer leading by two, Kelly sensed the task ahead for both Stricker and himself was ominous. “You know he’s going to be tough,” he said. “He’s smelling 46 right now.”

Patrick McDermott

As if on cue, Langer opened with birdie-birdie for the second straight day, added another birdie at six and at one point led by as many as seven. Over four rounds, Langer led the field in fairways hit (49 of 56) and greens in regulation (52 of 72), usually a winning formula in a USGA championship.

“I knew it was going to be a tough day just because Steve Stricker has been in top form,” Langer said. “He’s winning basically every time he tees up or thereabouts. I knew he would want to have his streak going of three majors in a row, and I knew he was going to give it his all.

“The same with Jerry Kelly. He’s one of the best ball-strikers, a very underrated golfer. I knew he would do well because he is one of the straightest hitters. The key this week, I think, was hitting the fairways. If you could keep it out of the cabbage, you had a chance. I think that’s one of the reasons I did so well.”

In the immediate aftermath, he was asked how long he could keep going, and he cited aches and pains that weren’t there a decade ago.

“I’ve got two bad knees, for those of you who don’t know, and it hurts bending down and staying down,” he said. “When I have dinner and I sit for an hour or something and get up, it’s hard to get up. That’s just been that way for a number of years.

“But I’ve got good news. I have my mother that’s going to be 100 on Aug. 4, so I think I have good genes. Hopefully, I’ll be around a few more years.”

The post Bernhard Langer, 65, defying age, wins US Senior Open to surpass Hale Irwin with record 46th Champions victory appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Michael Bamberger
At the risk of wearing out this hit from a current playlist: The painful beauty of professional tournament golf lies in the adventures a golfer endures on the way to the bottom of the 72nd hole. That has been true for a hundred years and then some. Who can forget Walter Hagen at the 1922 Open Championship at the notorious Royal St George’s? Went around in an even 300. The installments have been coming steadily ever since.

Which brings us to Sunday. In Gee Chun by a shot at the LPGA Championship at Congressional. (Nice!) Xander Schauffele by two at Hartford. (Dude!) And then there was Padraig Harrington at Saucon Valley at the US Senior Open. (Paddy!) He managed three white-knuckle cross-country two-putts on 70 and 71 and 72 to win by a shot over Steve Stricker.

Your yipping correspondent, watching from close range, could barely breathe, so wracked with anxiety was he.
Harrington: 274.
Stricker: 275.

By the way, at one point in the tournament Harrington had a six-shot lead (just as Chun led by seven and Schauffele led by five).

Stricker posted 9-under early, after a stunning 65 on the par-71 Old Course at Saucon Valley, which features three 18-hole courses. After a birdie on 15, Harrington rode 10-under from 16 to the house.

Padraig Harrington. Sam Greenwood

Maybe you saw the billboard on your way to the airport:

Tournament golf. Makes you feel alive. Pass it on.

This question comes to you from one of our new sponsors, Twilight Zone Golf Queries, makers of fine golf trivia questions:
Q: We all know that Phil Mickelson, at age 50, won the 2021 PGA Championship at Kiawah. Name two 2021 Ryder Cup captains who also made the cut in that championship.
A: Padraig Harrington (Europe) and Steve Stricker (United States).

Yep, Harrington finished three shots behind Mickelson. Stricker finished 10 shots behind Mickelson. Harrington’s T4 at the Ocean Course got him into this year’s Masters. Mickelson did not play in this year’s Masters. He didn’t play in the US Senior Open at Saucon either, though a spot awaited him.

“I wish Phil had played here — I would have liked to have the chance to try to beat him,” Harrington said on Sunday night, Sharpie in hand, signing country-club flags, as winners are always asked to do.

Here’s a foursome of great golf talkers active in the game today: Paddy, Geoff Ogilvy; natural-born talking genius Colin Montgomerie; and (by his own admission) Phil his own self. Maybe you remember Mickelson in the CBS booth with Nick Faldo and Jim Nantz at the 2020 PGA Championship: “Thank you, it’s nice to be here. There are three things I do well: play golf and talk golf.”

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The post Padraig Harrington’s win at the US Senior Open is a reminder what a treasure the Irishman is to the game appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By John Strege
Padraig Harrington went missing for a few years, a leading man relegated to bit roles in a Hall of Fame career that had stalled on the brink. Yet there he was on Sunday in Bethlehem, the last man standing, having delivered a reminder of how good he was and why enshrinement likely is imminent.

Irishman Harrington took a five-stroke lead into the final round on the Old Course at Saucon Valley CC, hung on precariously at times and gamely in the end to win his US Senior Open debut by one. And in so doing he extracted at least a small measure of revenge on Steve Stricker, who finished second.

“It’s tough today from the front and even tougher when it’s Steve Stricker behind me,” Harrington said. “He’s kind of got one up on me. Maybe I owed him one today. He’s certainly had my number a few times.”

Most notably, he had his number in the Ryder Cup last autumn, when Stricker captained the US team to a rout of the European team captained by Harrington.

Great players generally don’t forget how to win, and Harrington once was among the greatest, ranked third in the world at one time (at the height of Tiger Woods’ dominance), when in a two-season span he won consecutive British Opens and a PGA Championship. He was a winner of three other PGA Tour events and 12 other European Tour events in his career.

He had not won a tournament of any sort in six years, however, the last coming in the Portugal Open in 2016, yet with a sizable lead cut to one by Stricker’s closing round of six-under 65, Harrington brilliantly two-putted from long range on the closing three holes for the victory. He shot a one-over 72 for a 72-hole score of 10-under par 274.

“It’s very special,” Harrington, 50, said. “The reason I’m on the Champions Tour, the reason I’m out here, is I want to win. I want to win big events. I went to win majors again. It’s why we do it.”

The final round would have been a victory lap but for Stricker, who played the final 11 holes in six-under and made Harrington prove his mettle in his quest for a long overdue victory.

“I thought if I could get to nine or 10 [under] and he would have had to back up,” Stricker said, assessing his chances. He did get to nine-under with birdies at 17 and 18, then repaired to the clubhouse to see how Harrington’s closing holes would play out. After bogeys at his 10th and 11th holes, Harrington played his final seven holes in one-under.

The difficulty quotient in doing so, however, was ramped up when Harrington his loose approach shots on the final three holes, leaving him with long lag putts. He handled them expertly, getting to within three or four feet of the hole on the closing three greens, and made each par putt dead centre.

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The post Padraig Harrington holds off a charging Steve Stricker to win the US Senior Open appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.