BERNHARD LANGER had to battle down the stretch at the 2017 US Senior PGA Championship against a former fellow Masters winner in Vijay Singh but in the end prevailed to be the first ever to win all five senior majors.
The 59 year old German won by just a stroke at the National Golf Club but that slender margin has put a big gap in overall performances with his contemporaries on the the over 50’s golfing circuit.
As well as becoming the first to win all five senior major championships he also equalled Gary Player’s nine senior majors set in 1990.
Last week Langer won the Regions Tradition back to back to take his senior major tally to eight, equalling the Jack Nicklaus record.
“Coming here I knew my game was in pretty good shape after winning by five shots last week,” said Langer. “But, truly, I didn’t expect to pull it off again and today was a very hard day playing with Vijay.
“I was fortunate to make a bunch of putts, very important putts, even from 20 feet away and he missed a couple of shorter ones. It was a very tight race all day long until we got to 16 and 17, and then I got my nose in front by two and never looked back.
[quote]…hopefully this is encouraging for the older people that are my age that they can still improve their game, that they can still play good golf and get better even in their late 50s or early 60s[/quote]
“It has been a whirlwind couple of weeks for me, and hopefully this is encouraging for the older people that are my age that they can still improve their game, that they can still play good golf and get better even in their late 50s or early 60s.”
Langer (68) finished the tournament on 18-under, one ahead of Singh (70) with Miguel Angel Jimenez (68) tied third with Billy Andrade (71) on 13-under.
Austalia’s best was Peter Fowler (73) who finished on 1-over tied 38th. Craig Parry, Mike Harwood and Tim Elliot missed the cut.
2017 US Senior PGA Championship Final Round Highlights Video