Year in review: Langer, Roberts dominate in '09

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Bernhard Langer celebrates his win at the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf with Tom Lehman.

It's hard to choose between longevity and consistency as Bernhard Langer's greatest trait.

Both were on prominent display again during the 2009 Champions Tour campaign as Langer, 52, continued to add to his World Golf Hall of Fame resume.

There were five multiple winners on the Champions Tour in 2009. Langer led the way with four victories -- the Mitsubishi Electric Championship in Hawaii, the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf with partner Tom Lehman, the Triton Financial and 3M Championship.

Loren Roberts was a three-time winner at the ACE Group Classic, the Senior Open Championship and the Boeing Classic. Two-time winners were Keith Fergus (Cap Cana Championship, Regions Charity Classic), Jay Haas (Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship, Greater Hickory Classic at Rock Barn) and John Cook (Charles Schwab Cup Championship, Administaff Small Business Classic).

Langer, the dominant player through mid-July, had a clear-cut statistical advantage. He finished first in nine categories. Those included Scoring Average (68.92), Greens in Regulation (75.96%), Birdie Average (4.55), All-Around ranking, Money List ($2,139,451) and Par Breakers (25.90%). The Par Breakers or Better category included No. 1 rankings in par 4 birdies (21.90%) and par 5 birdies (48.84%). Langer was third in the par 3 birdies category at 16.53%.

He was fourth in total driving -- the statistic which measures the combination of distance and accuracy.

"I think you attribute it in my case to just being a fairly good driver of the ball, fairly good iron player, not having a real weakness," Langer said. "On any given day, when you look at the statistics, I'm up there in driving reasonably well and up there in hitting greens in regulation. I'm even up there in putting and other things.

"So if you're fairly good at everything, you should eliminate some bad scores and some bad tournaments. I think that's one of the reasons I'm having a lot of success finishing in the top 10 a lot, because I'm pretty consistent in all those areas."

That's the ninth category in which Langer finished No. 1 -- he had 15 top-10 finishes in 20 starts. For much of the year, it appeared Langer would not be derailed in his bid for his first $1 million Charles Schwab Cup annuity.

But first Fred Funk, then Roberts, made runs at the top spot before Roberts, who had a second half of the season to rival Langer's first, finally won the bonus for the second time in three years.

It was an exquisite charge by Roberts, who won early at the ACE Group Classic without playing his best golf before finally turning it up beginning at the Senior Open Championship in England where he won a playoff over Funk and Mark McNulty.

Beginning with a third-place finish at the Outback Steakhouse in April, Roberts had 11 top-10s in 13 starts.

"This might be one of my best accomplishments, I think, in golf, just because I really wasn't playing very good the first part of the year," Roberts said after capturing the Charles Schwab Cup. "To be able to come back and win it essentially with two thirds of a season was remarkable for me."

Cook and Haas also had exceptional finishes. Between them, Cook and Haas won four of the final six events, including two of the year's biggest titles.

"I played well most of the year," Cook said. "The event in Bend at the JELD-WEN Tradition, congrats to Mike Reid, but that was mine and I let it go. I screamed at myself for a month after that. I just was so torn up by the mistake I made at the last hole. I said that ain't gonna happen again.

"I said you can go one of two ways. Just say you're a regular guy out here making a living or you can figure out something and try to get better and more aggressive. I felt like the last month or so I got a little more aggressive around the golf course. You know, go ahead and take a cut at it. I took shots at pins more. I just said your golf swing is fine, just go ahead and do your thing."

The leading Class of '09 rookies were Larry Mize, Russ Cochran, Tom Lehman and Hal Sutton. Mize and Cochran finished 15th and 17th, respectively, on the money list. Lehman was the only winner among the rookies, teaming with Langer at the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf, and also finished 27th on the money list in only eight events while playing most of the year on the PGA TOUR. Sutton was 34th on the money list in 19 events.