Masters champ Bernhard Langer may have lost his length, but not his competitive spirit

Call his story “The Old Man with a Tee,” an unapologetic takeoff of a Hemingway title since his march through life matches the famed author’s plots with its twists and turns.

Here he is, Bernhard Langer, still mixing it up with the kids on the golf course and, at 67, still thirsting to give the them a tussle one more time in the 89th Masters.

Stretched to more than 7,500 yards to combat today’s technology and physicality, Augusta National’s treasured course, is too big for him now.

He’s making his 41st trip down Magnolia Lane for this year’s Masters, wearing his emotions on his sleeve, making no apology for the tears in his eyes.

“You can tell already my voice is breaking a bit just realizing it’s going to be my last competitive Masters,” Langer said during his pre-tournament meeting with the media.

That’s now. But look back and consider his professional trek and, yes, his is a tale worth telling one more time.

Born in village of 800 in Germany where, Langer said, “golf was nothing” to ascending to No. 1 in the world in his game to a pair of Masters championships ... in his words: “It’s incredible.”

All wine and roses? Not by a long shot.

For one thing, a torn Achilles kept him from making his Masters swan song a year ago. But more telling from a career standpoint, he suffered four different cases of the yips, which the Mayo Clinic defines this way: involuntary wrist spasms that occur most commonly when golfers are trying to putt.

“If you can’t putt, you can’t play” is part of the game’s mantra, and one bout with the yips is often fatal to a pro’s golf career. But four? And Langer remembers that 1989 night in Detroit after he hit 33 of 36 greens in regulation — and stood at 11 over par.

“I packed my stuff, missing the cut, went back to my hotel and literally got on my knees — I was already a believer at the time — and said a prayer, like: ‘God, if You want me done with this game, I’m ready to give it up. Just show me what You want me to do, and I’ll pack it up, no more golf,’ ” Langer said.

“A friend of mine was praying with me, and he said, ‘I don’t think He’s done with you yet. He wants you to persevere.’ I said, “Persevere? I’ve been persevering for years and years, and it’s getting worse and worse. ..’ He said, ‘No, just give it a few more weeks.’ ”

Langer did, and here he is again, playing the Masters.

A love affair with golf

Go back to the beginning, to his birthplace of Anhausen, Germany, to realize just how far Langer has come.

He had followed his older brother into the caddie ranks, taught himself to play and “I immediately fell in love with the game,” he said. “We were able to practice a little bit if there were no members to caddie for.”

Problem: “We couldn’t afford golf clubs.”

Solution: “One of the members discarded some of his old sticks. They actually had bamboo shafts. It was a 2-wood, a 3-iron, a 7-iron and a putter with a bent shaft. So, I always say that’s where my putting problems came from.”

Remember, he said, “golf was nothing” there. The Masters? He learned about the tournament thumbing through magazines after he became an assistant club pro.

“America was far away,” he said. “American golfers were supposed to be the greatest and the best. It was all kind of a dream. I didn’t even know I was going to become a tournament player. My goals were just to be good in Europe.

“Then as I became one of the better Europeans, obviously my dream stretched out and my goals went across the ocean, as well.”

From that humble beginning emerged a player who won two Masters and the RBC Heritage on the PGA Tour and 47 tournaments on the Champions Tour. (A side note: only Langer (1985) and Scottie Scheffler (2024) have won the Masters and Heritage on consecutive weeks.)

“He’s sort of like the Iron Man of golf,” said Rory McIlrory, whose description of Langer included “just amazing” and called his record “unbelievably impressive.”

McIlrory added, “Just to have that competitive spirit and have that competitive fire burn for so long, I don’t know if I would be able to do that.”

Few could, or, at least, few have performed at such a high level for so long.

In previewing the Masters on a pre-tournament conference call with the media, ESPN analyst Andy North marveled at Langer’s longevity.

“He’s reinvented himself multiple times during his career, which is really amazing to be able to do,” the two-time U.S. Open champion said.

How’d he do that?

“Longevity and consistency are big words, especially in the game of golf,” Langer said. “It’s so fragile. It’s so volatile. It’s like the stock market. It just comes and goes. You hear major winners one day, and then you don’t hear about them two years later.

“It’s a difficult thing. I guess God has blessed me with tremendous talent and being a great competitor, but there are many other things that are important. You need to be healthy. You’ve got to have a great support system, a good caddie, a good coach, on and on, the list goes on. You’ve got to be willing to sacrifice, as well, because it’s not always easy.”

A big part of the “not easy” at the highest level of professional golf is separation from family and friends.

But he has plenty of family support for his final competitive Masters. Perhaps more significantly, the gallery was behind him. Starting at No. 1, he left almost every tee and every green Thursday to thanks-for-the-memories ovations.

Still making memories

Masters memories? Oh, yeah. Langer loves to recall the eagle on the par-5 13th that put him in command en route to the 1993 championship.

“I hit a beautiful draw around the corner, hit a 3-iron off a little downhill, side hill lie,” he said. “That might be the best 3-iron I’ve ever hit in my life, to about 10, 12 feet inside of Chip Beck. He putted on the same line as me from further away, so I saw the break, and then I made the eagle putt. That was pretty incredible there.”

And the aftermath?

“My wife was greeting me with three of our kids, so a lot had changed from ’85 to ’93,” he said.

And, remembering the red outfit he wore en route to victory, he said, “I always tease Tiger, I said, ‘See, I was the one wearing a red shirt first; you came later.’ ”

Indeed, he turned retro with his outfit Thursday. Red shirt, red trousers, white belt, white shoes and white visor _ right out of the ’80s and ’90s _ and the same he wore on Masters Sunday in 1985.

Langer set out Thursday morning to play like he did yesteryear and to create memories one last time. He knew he had no chance to win. But, remember, he’s the poster boy for “competitor.”

He hit golf, fairways and greens and was a model of consistency with one birdie (No. 3) and three bogeys (12, 13 and 17). His only complaints: a bad club selection on 12 and hitting a chip fat on 13.

He gave up massive distance off the tee; playing partners Will Zalatoris and Noah Kent out drove him by at least 80 yards _ and sometimes more. Yet, Langer and Zalatoris matched 74s and Kent, an amateur, posted a 79.

“Overall, it was a pretty good round for a 67-year-old to get around here at 2-over with the clubs I’m hitting into greens,” Langer said. “Sometimes, 3-woods into par-4s and 2 hybrids and 3 hybrids. So, overall, I’m very pleased with the performance.”

But the competitor in him quickly looked ahead, to playing better, to making the cut one more time at Augusta National.

The man who emerged from where “golf was nothing” and overcame the dreaded yips on a march to stardom would accept nothing less.

This story was originally published April 11, 2025 at 7:00 AM with the headline "Masters champ Bernhard Langer may have lost his length, but not his competitive spirit."