Langer's on-course success becoming family affair
By Lauren Deason, PGATOUR.COM Editorial Coordinator
PALM COAST, Fla. -- Out of 77 players in the field at the Ginn Championship Hammock Beach Resort, only three shot rounds below par on Sunday.
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Bernhard Langer was part of that trio of guys in the red, but only by the skin of his teeth. Needing to make a 22-footer to save par and stay at 1 under for the round, the man with the clutch short game came through at the 18th hole.
Langer maintained his overnight lead Sunday morning and then some when the rest of the field went backward as the wind picked up. Before long, it began to look more like the British Open than a tournament located on Florida's First Coast as winds gusted from 15-25 miles per hour.
"He's got such a tremendous short game that when it was blowing like this at the start of the day, you'd almost bet that he was going to win hands down. When it is windy like this and you can only hit about half the greens, he is just a magician," said Lonnie Nielsen, who was paired with Langer on the final day.
One particularly noteworthy shot from the magician was his birdie on No. 6. He hit "the most beautiful shot out of the hazard right in the cup," Nielsen said. "And he just continued to amaze us all day long getting it up and down."
He was 12 under par for the tournament, beating runners-up Tim Simpson and Nielsen by eight strokes. That gave him his second win in three starts on the Champions Tour and a 363-point lead in the Charles Schwab Cup point's standings.
Langer's 17-year-old son Stefan drove up from Boca Raton, Fla., to help his father capture a third Champions Tour victory. He arrived on Thursday night and missed a day of school on Friday to caddie for his dad in the three-round event.
"He's rock solid and has a great attitude," said Bernhard of Stefan. "He's caddied for me twice before and we won one and finished tied for fifth in the other one."
For his part, Stefan claimed he mostly let his three-time PGA TOUR-winning father and former Masters champion do his thing and didn't offer much advice.
"He will take my opinion on reading putts a little and judging winds," said Stefan. "But for the most part, he does it himself."
It's their second win together (the other came at the 2006 World Golf Championships-Barbados World Cup) as player/caddie. Stefan, a talented golfer himself, also captured titles in 2005 and 2006 while playing with his dad in the annual Del Webb Father-Son Challenge.
His dad hasn't decided whether Stefan will receive a caddie's fee from the $375,000 winner's check.
"That's the thing, my wife and I have been talking about this," Langer said. "I would really like to pay him like I would pay a normal caddie because that's how I treat people. On the other hand, I don't want to spoil him rotten and have [knowing] that he has that much money in the bank or somewhere. I don't want him to go crazy."
Having grown up in a household where his parents worked 14 to 16 hours a day, Bernhard appreciates the value of hard work. His father grew up on a farm but got kicked out of that over night and had to start from scratch at age 28. With no inheritance, he turned to bricklaying and never made a whole lot of money.
Naturally, money was scarce in the Langer household so Bernhard the youngster, living in Bavaria with his family, began caddying at age eight to pick up pocket change.
"Obviously, I try not to spoil my kids and it is hard to do when there is so much around them," he explained. "When I tell them the story of my youth, they can't relate to it. I don't think they can because they haven't been through it."
Now his son could be looking at a sizeable check and his daughters were eyeing the new car Langer won because of his victory. The Langer parents still try to maintain a sense of normalcy and instill a strong work ethic in their children.
Langer, a devout Christian, isn't known for being effusive or highly emotional on the golf course. The 50-year-old drinks a glass of wine or a "radler" or "shandi" (half Sprite, half beer) on occasion, but will keep the post-win partying to a minimum.
In fact, it wouldn't be uncommon for them to stop at Cracker Barrel, his wife's "favorite spot," on their four-hour drive home tonight.
"Hopefully, a little better than that, but we have been there many times," Langer said. "We might visit one of them on the way home."
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