Old swinger Langer proving age no barrier to success

You can never say never in golf.

Just ask Bernhard Langer, who went from invincible to crippled on the greens to invincible again with the kind of comeback from a seemingly hopeless position that is the hallmark of German football teams.

The 55-year old’s story is a lesson in the triumph of sheer will over adversity and it was no surprise to see him not only contend for Masters glory this week but predict that given the longevity of the modern tour player, advances in equipment and the stay of execution for the anchored putter until January 2016 at the earliest, a senior player will win one of golf’s four majors.

“I say it’s going to happen that a senior player is going to win a major championship,” Langer said after rounds of 71-71-72 left him just five shots off the leadgoing into last night’s final round. “Tom Watson almost did it, obviously on a little shorter golf course, Fred Couples can do it at any given moment, and there’s a few of us that might do it, too. It’s going to happen sooner or later.”

Langer’s battle with the yips began 25 years ago and he has arguably experienced more putting problems than any player in the recent history of the game.

Those with good memories will remember how he played in May 1987. On the famous Burma Road, the West Course at Wentworth, he produced a performance described by arch-rival Seve Ballesteros as “quite unbelievable golf” when he shot rounds of 66, 69, 68 and 67 to post an 18 under par total and beat Ballesteros by four strokes when capturing the White & Mackay PGA Championship.

Six weeks later, Langer produced an equally stunning performance at Portmarnock, where he recorded rounds of 67, 68, 66 and 68 to win the Carrolls Irish Open by a record 10 strokes from Sandy Lyle, one of Europe’s top players at that time.

The fact the German was 37 under par for those two events, would suggest seriously good form with his putter but within 12 months the situation had changed completely.

“It was pathetic to watch him,” was how Eamonn Darcy described the experience of being playing partner to Langer while he suffered grievously on Portmarnock’s greens with opening rounds of 72 and 77 in defence of his Irish Open crown.

This had come after the Open Championship at Royal Lytham where he endured the indignity of five-putting one green en route to a final round of 80.

By the end of the year, Langer had slipped to his lowest tour ranking since 1979. His solution was to clasp a longer-than-normal putter to his left forearm, a method first devised by Scottish professional, Ian Marchbank. And it saved Langer’s career.

What’s most remarkable about Langer is that five years after the torment of summer ‘88, he passed the ultimate examination of putting when capturing the Masters for a second time on the torturous putting surfaces at Augusta National and since then, he has gone on to have spectacular success on the Champions Tour in the US, using the broom-handle putter with his Champions Tour career earnings now over $10m.

Langer, whose Czech-born father settled in Bavaria after jumping off a Russian prisoner-of-war train bound for Siberia, took up the game at the age of seven and turned professional 11 years later. He first came to prominence by claiming the 1979 Cacharel U25 Championship by an astonishing 17 strokes, an achievement which hinted at huge potential.

His attention to detail has always appealed to Pádraig Harrington’s inner geek and when the Dubliner admitted he was close to getting the yips on the greens at last year’s Masters, he sought out the maestro for advice.

“It was very close to the heebie-jeebies on the greens,” Harrington said. “So my wife actually made me, under threat, talk to Bernhard.”