Opinion & Analysis

30 years later, how is Bernhard Langer still so good?

Published

9 years ago

Apr 8, 2015

[dropcap]B[/dropcap]ernhard Langer will celebrate the 30th anniversary of winning his first Green Jacket at the Masters this year, and he’ll be in the field competing for another one. He’s not coming to Augusta for the memories or nostalgia. Both are readily available, but he’s playing to win.

Last year at 56 years old, Langer finished in eighth place on a course that is supposed to be far too long for his age. The year before, he finished in the top-25. So what’s his secret? How is he still so good?

To find out, I traveled to Boca Raton, Fla., to spend the day on the course with Langer. I came back with answers to those questions, but they weren’t what I expected.

The German’s Genesis

As he explained, Langer comes from a poor background in West Germany, and started caddying to earn money at the age of 12. When he was 15, he became the assistant pro at a local golf club in Germany, and after a few years of helping members with their swings, he turned professional at 18.

[quote_box_center]”I’ve never been an amateur,” Langer said over steak filets after our round.[/quote_box_center]

Langer began traveling and playing golf events, but he found that he couldn’t afford the cab fare. With a shag bag of golf balls and a bag of clubs slung over his shoulder, he’d take buses and trains to tournaments. Now, the Hall of Famer takes helicopters and jets to events.

[quote_box_center]”I had no idea I’d have this kind of career,” Langer said. “I just wanted to earn a living for a few years. It’s amazing what’s happened.”[/quote_box_center]

Young and Overlooked

Langer turned pro 39 years and 96 wins ago. While he’s recognized as a two-time Masters champion, most golf fans think his dominance started after he reached the Champions Tours, where he’s won 23 events and counting. But he doesn’t see it that way.

[quote_center]”I had good years in my 20s and 30s,” Langer said. “It’s just because I didn’t play much in America that people don’t know about it.”[/quote_center]

As Langer tells it, the Masters was his last tournament in America every year. He’d sometimes leave Augusta as the leader of the PGA Tour’s money list, he said, but then return to Europe for the rest of the season and play in relative obscurity.

[quote_center]“There was no Golf Channel then, and no American golf writers saw us (Europeans) so we weren’t interesting,” he said.[/quote_center]

In his later years, he’s received far more media coverage. It’s his work ethic that has been credited for his strong play and longevity, but again, Langer has a different take.

[quote_box_center]”People think all I do is practice and it’s simply not true,” he said. “I’ll take four or five days off from golf after a tournament … I eat right, stay healthy and fit, but most of all I take breaks from the game. I spend time with my family and my kids. If I just played golf all the time I’d wear myself out.”[/quote_box_center]

There’s an important lesson here for junior and amateur players — even the young golfers on professional tours. You can love golf and work hard, but keep a balance.

Augusta, a rare beauty… that can cook

Langer is a family man. You can tell by the way he speaks of his wife and kids that he’s a husband and father before anything else. But you can also tell he has another love — Augusta National.

Maybe it’s the food.

[quote_box_center]”It’s the best German food I’ve ever had… in America at least,” Langer said, describing his first Champions’ Dinner.[/quote_box_center]

Langer told me a story about the time he and three friends played Augusta one weekend. They played the course multiple times in two days, but his best memory of that weekend was the eating experience.

[quote_center]”The cooks make any food you want, and they’ll deliver it to the cabins for you,” Langer said. “It’s awesome.”[/quote_center]

Of course, it’s more than the food at Augusta. As a course designer, Langer says Augusta ranks highly on his list of the best courses of the world. But his admiration for the course won’t be as essential to his success in this year’s tournament as his razor sharp iron play, and more importantly, the local knowledge he’s acquired in his 31 Masters appearances.

[quote_box_center]”I’ve played (300) or 400 times,” Langer said. “The trick to Augusta is you need to hit great iron shots. You need creativity and you need to know where to miss.”[/quote_box_center]

Langer admits he wasn’t a great driver of the ball in his prime, and Augusta’s wide fairways helped his cause. But those were the days of small-headed persimmon drivers, and in 1993, Langer was the last Masters Champion to win using the old technology.

New equipment, same simplicity

The introduction of hybrids and the modern driver have greatly improved Langer’s ability to compete. He told me that he thinks he’s a better driver now than he’s even been. He’s also since found a friend in the soon-to-be-outlawed anchored putter.

A few years after he won his second Green Jacket in 1993, Langer began using a long putter, which he anchors to his chest. He said he learned the technique from Sam Torrance and Peter King in 1997. But after nearly 20 years, Langer will have to switch back to a conventional stroke when the anchored putter ban takes effect in 2016.

Langer’s split-grip putter, which is actually just a homemade concoction of two standard grips.

[quote_box_center]”It makes no sense,” Langer said regarding the ban. “If everyone thought [an anchored putter] was an advantage, trust me, they would do it. Who’s using big drivers? Or hybrids? Everyone, because it’s an advantage. Who’s using an anchored putter? 12-to-14 percent of the guys.”[/quote_box_center]

Come November, when the Champions Tour season is over, Langer will start messing around with short putters to find something he likes. But for now, he’s not worried about it.

While Langer’s been known to fidget around with a lot of different putters and techniques, his swing remains eerily similar to his younger years. That’s part of his secret, he said. He keeps it simple at all times, even when he’s hitting what seem to be complicated shots.

Langer putting on a clinic at the range of Delaire Country Club.

[quote_center]”To hit different shots, I keep the same swing as if I’m hitting a straight shot,” Langer said.[/quote_center]

To hit a cut, he opens the stance and the club face and then simply tries to hit it straight. To hit a draw, he closes the stance and the club face. To hit it low, he puts the ball back in the stance. To hit it high… you get the picture.

His swing philosophy is much like his mentality on equipment — he doesn’t tinker much, and uses whatever works best. At Delaire Country Club’s range, in front of 50 or so people, he took one swing with the Adams Red — a straight bullet that went about 240 yards without a breath of fade or draw.

Adams Pro Red has interchangeable weights on the sole to dial in ball flight.

[quote_box_center]”Well, this club is going in the bag,” he told the audience.[/quote_box_center]

With Adams reps looking on, Langer could have just been fulfilling his duty as company spokesman, but he doesn’t come across that way. He seems to tell it like he hits a golf ball — straight.

It’s a chess game to me

After watching him stripe shot after shot on the range, I asked the question I heard onlookers asking each other.

[quote_center]Doesn’t it get boring, hitting perfect shots all the time?[/quote_center]

The approach shot on hole No. 5 at Delaire CC isn’t the easiest. There’s water short and left of the green, and on that day the pin was tucked on the left side. Langer, standing in the middle of the fairway, told me he was aiming at a spot 20 feet to the right of the pin, and anticipated that the 20 mph wind would bring the ball back to the hole.

“If the wind takes it, then fine,” he said. “If it doesn’t I’m putting.”

The wind didn’t take it, but I better understood why Langer hasn’t gotten bored with golf. He might be able to hit perfect shot after perfect shot, but as a tournament golfer and world traveler, he’s always playing different courses in different conditions. The strategy and planning is one of his biggest golf thrills.

[quote_box_center]”It’s like a chess game to figure out the right shot to play,” he said. “Or where not to miss it.”[/quote_box_center]

Many golfers, even some tour pros, play checkers. Langer plays chess.

A competitor at heart

What keeps a 57-year-old Hall of Famer competing with the same fire he had in his prime?

[quote_box_center]”I like winning,” Langer said with a smirk.[/quote_box_center]

That’s the real secret to Langer’s longevity in golf — not his healthy lifestyle, his swing, or his family life… although none of that hurts.

When I asked Langer what he’d be doing if he never played golf, he said he’d probably be a soccer coach, or have some other job in sports. He’s just four wins shy of his 100^th professional golf win, but if he never picked up a golf club, it was clear that he’d be chasing another competitive milestone.

How long will he continue to play in the Masters?

[quote_box_center]”Until I can’t break 80,” he said.[/quote_box_center]

If that’s the case, we could be waiting a while.

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19th Hole

Vincenzi’s 2024 Zurich Classic of New Orleans betting preview

Published

1 day ago

Apr 22, 2024

Matt Vincenzi

The PGA TOUR heads to New Orleans to play the 2023 Zurich Classic of New Orleans. In a welcome change from the usual stroke play, the Zurich Classic is a team event. On Thursday and Saturday, the teams play best ball, and on Friday and Sunday the teams play alternate shot.

TPC Louisiana is a par 72 that measures 7,425 yards. The course features some short par 4s and plenty of water and bunkers, which makes for a lot of exciting risk/reward scenarios for competitors. Pete Dye designed the course in 2004 specifically for the Zurich Classic, although the event didn’t make its debut until 2007 because of Hurricane Katrina.

Coming off of the Masters and a signature event in consecutive weeks, the field this week is a step down, and understandably so. Many of the world’s top players will be using this time to rest after a busy stretch.

However, there are some interesting teams this season with some stars making surprise appearances in the team event. Some notable teams include Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele, Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry, Collin Morikawa and Kurt Kitayama, Will Zalatoris and Sahith Theegala as well as a few Canadian teams, Nick Taylor and Adam Hadwin and Taylor Pendrith and Corey Conners.

Past Winners at TPC Louisiana

2023: Riley/Hardy (-30)
2022: Cantlay/Schauffele (-29)
2021: Leishman/Smith (-20)
2019: Palmer/Rahm (-26)
2018: Horschel/Piercy (-22)
2017: Blixt/Smith (-27)

2024 Zurich Classic of New Orleans Picks

Tom Hoge/Maverick McNealy +2500 (DraftKings)

Tom Hoge is coming off of a solid T18 finish at the RBC Heritage and finished T13 at last year’s Zurich Classic alongside Harris English.

This season, Hoge is having one of his best years on Tour in terms of Strokes Gained: Approach. In his last 24 rounds, the only player to top him on the category is Scottie Scheffler. Hoge has been solid on Pete Dye designs, ranking 28th in the field over his past 36 rounds.

McNealy is also having a solid season. He’s finished T6 at the Waste Management Phoenix Open and T9 at the PLAYERS Championship. He recently started working with world renowned swing coach, Butch Harmon, and its seemingly paid dividends in 2024.

Keith Mitchell/Joel Dahmen +4000 (DraftKings)

Keith Mitchell is having a fantastic season, finishing in the top-20 of five of his past seven starts on Tour. Most recently, Mitchell finished T14 at the Valero Texas Open and gained a whopping 6.0 strokes off the tee. He finished 6th at last year’s Zurich Classic.

Joel Dahmen is having a resurgent year and has been dialed in with his irons. He also has a T11 finish at the PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass which is another Pete Dye track. With Mitchell’s length and Dahmen’s ability to put it close with his short irons, the Mitchell/Dahmen combination will be dangerous this week.

Taylor Moore/Matt NeSmith +6500 (DraftKings)

Taylor Moore has quickly developed into one of the more consistent players on Tour. He’s finished in the top-20 in three of his past four starts, including a very impressive showing at The Masters, finishing T20. He’s also finished T4 at this event in consecutive seasons alongside Matt NeSmith.

NeSmith isn’t having a great 2024, but has seemed to elevate his game in this format. He finished T26 at Pete Dye’s TPC Sawgrass, which gives the 30-year-old something to build off of. NeSmith is also a great putter on Bermudagrass, which could help elevate Moore’s ball striking prowess.

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19th Hole

Vincenzi’s 2024 LIV Adelaide betting preview: Cam Smith ready for big week down under

Published

1 day ago

Apr 22, 2024

Matt Vincenzi

After having four of the top twelve players on the leaderboard at The Masters, LIV Golf is set for their fifth event of the season: LIV Adelaide.

For both LIV fans and golf fans in Australia, LIV Adelaide is one of the most anticipated events of the year. With 35,000 people expected to attend each day of the tournament, the Grange Golf Club will be crawling with fans who are passionate about the sport of golf. The 12th hole, better known as “the watering hole”, is sure to have the rowdiest of the fans cheering after a long day of drinking some Leishman Lager.

The Grange Golf Club is a par-72 that measures 6,946 yards. The course features minimal resistance, as golfers went extremely low last season. In 2023, Talor Gooch shot consecutive rounds of 62 on Thursday and Friday, giving himself a gigantic cushion heading into championship Sunday. Things got tight for a while, but in the end, the Oklahoma State product was able to hold off The Crushers’ Anirban Lahiri for a three-shot victory.

The Four Aces won the team competition with the Range Goats finishing second.

*All Images Courtesy of LIV Golf*

Past Winners at LIV Adelaide

2023: Talor Gooch (-19)

Stat Leaders Through LIV Miami

Green in Regulation

Richard Bland
Jon Rahm
Paul Casey

Fairways Hit

Abraham Ancer
Graeme McDowell
Henrik Stenson

Driving Distance

Bryson DeChambeau
Joaquin Niemann
Dean Burmester

Putting

Cameron Smith
Louis Oosthuizen
Matt Jones

2024 LIV Adelaide Picks

Cameron Smith +1400 (DraftKings)

When I pulled up the odds for LIV Adelaide, I was more than a little surprised to see multiple golfers listed ahead of Cameron Smith on the betting board. A few starts ago, Cam finished runner-up at LIV Hong Kong, which is a golf course that absolutely suits his eye. Augusta National in another course that Smith could roll out of bed and finish in the top-ten at, and he did so two weeks ago at The Masters, finishing T6.

At Augusta, he gained strokes on the field on approach, off the tee (slightly), and of course, around the green and putting. Smith able to get in the mix at a major championship despite coming into the week feeling under the weather tells me that his game is once again rounding into form.

The Grange Golf Club is another course that undoubtedly suits the Australian. Smith is obviously incredibly comfortable playing in front of the Aussie faithful and has won three Australian PGA Championship’s. The course is very short and will allow Smith to play conservative off the tee, mitigating his most glaring weakness. With birdies available all over the golf course, there’s a chance the event turns into a putting contest, and there’s no one on the planet I’d rather have in one of those than Cam Smith.

Louis Oosthuizen +2200 (DraftKings)

Louis Oosthuizen has simply been one of the best players on LIV in the 2024 seas0n. The South African has finished in the top-10 on the LIV leaderboard in three of his five starts, with his best coming in Jeddah, where he finished T2. Perhaps more impressively, Oosthuizen finished T7 at LIV Miami, which took place at Doral’s “Blue Monster”, an absolutely massive golf course. Given that Louis is on the shorter side in terms of distance off the tee, his ability to play well in Miami shows how dialed he is with the irons this season.

In addition to the LIV finishes, Oosthuizen won back-to-back starts on the DP World Tour in December at the Alfred Dunhill Championship and the Mauritus Open. He also finished runner-up at the end of February in the International Series Oman. The 41-year-old has been one of the most consistent performers of 2024, regardless of tour.

For the season, Louis ranks 4th on LIV in birdies made, T9 in fairways hit and first in putting. He ranks 32nd in driving distance, but that won’t be an issue at this short course. Last season, he finished T11 at the event, but was in decent position going into the final round but fell back after shooting 70 while the rest of the field went low. This season, Oosthuizen comes into the event in peak form, and the course should be a perfect fit for his smooth swing and hot putter this week.

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Opinion & Analysis

The Wedge Guy: What really makes a wedge work? Part 1

Published

5 days ago

Apr 18, 2024

Terry Koehler

Of all the clubs in our bags, wedges are almost always the simplest in construction and, therefore, the easiest to analyze what might make one work differently from another if you know what to look for.

Wedges are a lot less mysterious than drivers, of course, as the major brands are working with a lot of “pixie dust” inside these modern marvels. That’s carrying over more to irons now, with so many new models featuring internal multi-material technologies, and almost all of them having a “badge” or insert in the back to allow more complex graphics while hiding the actual distribution of mass.

But when it comes to wedges, most on the market today are still single pieces of molded steel, either cast or forged into that shape. So, if you look closely at where the mass is distributed, it’s pretty clear how that wedge is going to perform.

To start, because of their wider soles, the majority of the mass of almost any wedge is along the bottom third of the clubhead. So, the best wedge shots are always those hit between the 2nd and 5th grooves so that more mass is directly behind that impact. Elite tour professionals practice incessantly to learn to do that consistently, wearing out a spot about the size of a penny right there. If impact moves higher than that, the face is dramatically thinner, so smash factor is compromised significantly, which reduces the overall distance the ball will fly.

Every one of us, tour players included, knows that maddening shot that we feel a bit high on the face and it doesn’t go anywhere, it’s not your fault.

If your wedges show a wear pattern the size of a silver dollar, and centered above the 3rd or 4th groove, you are not getting anywhere near the same performance from shot to shot. Robot testing proves impact even two to three grooves higher in the face can cause distance loss of up to 35 to 55 feet with modern ‘tour design’ wedges.

In addition, as impact moves above the center of mass, the golf club principle of gear effect causes the ball to fly higher with less spin. Think of modern drivers for a minute. The “holy grail” of driving is high launch and low spin, and the driver engineers are pulling out all stops to get the mass as low in the clubhead as possible to optimize this combination.

Where is all the mass in your wedges? Low. So, disregarding the higher lofts, wedges “want” to launch the ball high with low spin – exactly the opposite of what good wedge play requires penetrating ball flight with high spin.

While almost all major brand wedges have begun putting a tiny bit more thickness in the top portion of the clubhead, conventional and modern ‘tour design’ wedges perform pretty much like they always have. Elite players learn to hit those crisp, spinny penetrating wedge shots by spending lots of practice time learning to consistently make contact low in the face.

So, what about grooves and face texture?

Grooves on any club can only do so much, and no one has any material advantage here. The USGA tightly defines what we manufacturers can do with grooves and face texture, and modern manufacturing techniques allow all of us to push those limits ever closer. And we all do. End of story.

Then there’s the topic of bounce and grinds, the most complex and confusing part of the wedge formula. Many top brands offer a complex array of sole configurations, all of them admittedly specialized to a particular kind of lie or turf conditions, and/or a particular divot pattern.

But if you don’t play the same turf all the time, and make the same size divot on every swing, how would you ever figure this out?

The only way is to take any wedge you are considering and play it a few rounds, hitting all the shots you face and observing the results. There’s simply no other way.

So, hopefully this will inspire a lively conversation in our comments section, and I’ll chime in to answer any questions you might have.

And next week, I’ll dive into the rest of the wedge formula. Yes, shafts, grips and specifications are essential, too.

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