THE US Champions Tour plays its third major of the year this week with all the usual suspects teeing it up at the Constellation Senior Players Championship at the Belmont Country Club in Massachusetts.
Defending champion Bernhard Langer had a stellar year in 2014, winning this event as well as the Senior British Open, three other regular events, the Charles Schwab Cup and Player of the Year.
This year things haven’t gone so well and the 57 year old German has been languishing with no wins in his nine starts.
But you couldn’t find a harder working golfer than Langer and there’s no doubt he’s analysed his malaise to the nth degree.
“Just not quite there,” Langer said this week. “I’m firing on three cylinders instead of four and I’m only 80 percent, 90 percent, not 100 at times.
“So it’s a combination of hitting a couple of loose shots, maybe a couple of bad putts and, you know, maybe even getting frustrated here and there.”
Frustration generally leads to other problems like, “just not thinking clearly or playing overly aggressive when you’re not on top of your game.”
“(It) can be costly because you’re going for the perfect shot and you’re not swinging well enough to pull it off and then you’re getting a double-bogey or something like that when you would have made a par if you had played a little smarter, that kind of thing. It’s a combination of things.”
Other leading contenders include Colin Montgomerie, who has won three majors in 13 months, Joe Durant, Tom Pernice Jr and Kenny Perry, who bid farewell to the regular PGA Tour last week.
Australia’s lone representative is Peter Senior, who last week had his best finish of the year with a top ten at the Principal Charity Classic in Iowa and would love nothing better than making this event his first Champions Tour victory.
Fox Sports coverage begins Friday at 1am.
Constellation Senior Players Championship Leaderboard
Constellation Senior Players Championship Leaderboard