UBernhard Langer certainly no longer has to worry about old-age provision. Last Sunday, the 64-year-old professional golfer won the Charles Schwab Cup for the sixth time. This is not only another record, because no other player has won the PGA Tour Champions season ranking, which has been played out since 2001, more than twice, but also financially lucrative.
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The Bavarian Swabian from Anhausen earned another million dollars (around 880,000 euros), which is paid out as a pension. Since he switched to the American Seniors Tour in 2007 after his fiftieth birthday, he has earned more than 40 million dollars in prize money and bonus payments for the Charles Schwab Cup – much more than he did on the regular PGA Tour (around ten Million dollars) and on the European Tour (around 11 million euros).
Despite this ample old-age provision, Langer is far from thinking about retirement. Why also? How well the “ageless” professional can still play golf, he once again proved at the final tournament of the 36 season’s best of the PGA Tour Champions at the Phoenix Country Club in Arizona – even though he was plagued by back pain, especially on the first two days , the worst in thirty years, as he said.
“I’m just overwhelmed”
On the first day he even considered giving up after three holes. But Langer persevered and shone on Saturday with a round of 63 strokes (eight under par), the first time that he undercut his age – a very special coup for golfers. The day after he fell back with his final round of 69 strokes (two under par) from 9th to 17th place.
But that was enough because his closest rival, the American Jim Furyk, could not maintain his top position on the final day and only ended up in shared fifth place. “I’m just overwhelmed that I won this cup six times at the age of 64. It will probably be the last time, I’m almost sure, but it’s something very special, ”said Langer.
The final tournament of this “Best Agers” series was won by Phil Mickelson, thanks to a bogey-free final round of 65 strokes, for which he received 440,000 dollars (around 390,000 euros). The Californian left-hander equaled a record from Jack Nicklaus. Both of them needed just six tournaments on this senior tour to create four wins.
Langer also knows that “Lefty”, the PGA champion, could be the dominant man on this tour: “If Phil played more on our tour, he would hold this trophy in his hands,” said Langer at the award ceremony. But 51-year-old Mickelson, who was the oldest player to date to win a major, his sixth and 45th time on the PGA Tour in May of this year, will probably only occasionally compete on the PGA Tour Champions in the future.
Langer, on the other hand, will probably only measure himself against the younger competitors once in 2022, at the Masters in Augusta (Georgia) at the beginning of April. To be well prepared for the new season of the PGA Tour Champions, which begins on January 17th with the Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai in Ka’upulehu-Kona (Hawaii), he flew to Germany the day after his last great success. “I survived the twelve-hour flight without back pain,” Langer told the FAZ on the phone.
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Over the next ten days he will be contacted by his personal physician Dr. Have Norbert Dehoust in Herrsching am Ammersee treated with an injection cure to finally get rid of the pain in the left knee and thigh. To do this, he will not touch a golf club for six to eight weeks. Nevertheless, he firmly believes in playing at the start of the season in nine weeks – and again with great ambitions: “I’m still one of the five or ten best players on this tour. I think I can still win tournaments. Maybe I can play better without pain in my knee. “
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