Quiet man Langer the inspiration for victory

SAM TORRANCE may have nominated Monty as the team leader on the course, Sergio and Westwood may have been the fans’ darlings after two days of almost undiluted high-fiving, but more than anyone else, it was the calm and composure of Bernhard Langer that typified the steel in Europe’s successful Ryder Cup team.

Quiet and assured throughout, almost to the point of anonymity as others hogged - and basked in - the limelight, Langer was nevertheless the essence of resilience despite playing with a ricked neck throughout Friday and on Saturday morning.

The 44-year-old German remained unbeaten through the three days and brought home a valuable total of three-and-a-half points for the Europeans.

With more miles on the clock than a vintage Mercedes, many feared beforehand that Langer was over the top and would be found out by the mega-hitting young Americans. He wasn’t and his performance over the weekend brought his Ryder Cup win total to 24, leaving him second in the all-time list only to Nick Faldo.

Having partnered Monty to what Cutis Strange described as a 4&3 pummelling of Hoch and Furyk on the first morning and then unluckily shedding a half point to Mickelson and Toms in the afternoon, he then turned up on Saturday morning to eke out a hard-earned one hole victory against Verplank and Hoch - again in tandem with the burly Scot.

And then yesterday a run of four birdies on the front nine snapped the will of the redoubtable Hal Sutton and, along with Monty’s demolition of Scott Hoch, set the Europeans on the road to victory.

His eventual 4 and 3 win over Sutton was graciously accepted by an American who knew he’d met a man with a greater will to win than he on the day.

The victory came at a time when American Captain Curtis Strange confessed, “my guys are getting beaten up right now and there’s a couple of games out of control.”

He was not yet conceding anything however, but for Langer what was happening as he closed Sutton out with a regulation score on the long par five fifteenth, was not entirely unexpected.

“We looked at the draw last night in the team room,” he revealed, “and we were really excited.

“We still knew that we had to play really well, but the idea was that we would try to win the first five or six games to take the pressure off the guys lower down the order because there’s always swings in these games.”

The German, along with the management and the rest of the team had plenty of worrying moments before first Philip Price and then Fasth and McGinley squeezed the life out of the American challenge and won for him what is a unique place in the pantheon of modern European golf with his fifth Ryder Cup success.

And who knows, there might be more life in the old dog yet. He’s certainly not ruling it out.

“I’m not going to limit myself. I don’t know what time will bring and what’s going to happen in two years. I know the chances are very slim for me to make any more Ryder Cup teams because I live in America now and the only way for me to make it would be to change the qualification system and work off the world rankings and not the European Order of Merit.

“But l have a bit of free time and I will think about maybe putting my name forward as a future captain Maybe even in two years time. We’ll see how the dice rolls,” he said.