As Bernhard Langer has aged, he hasn’t had any trouble stacking up tournament victories.
At 68, Langer is the all-time leader in PGA Tour Champions event wins with 47. The German-born pro was the featured guest of honor at Tuesday morning’s Hoag Classic Hall of Fame Community Breakfast at the Balboa Bay Club.
Langer held court in a discussion with Hank Adler, chairman emeritus of the Hoag Classic.
He said he was shocked by remarks made by Rory McIlroy, currently No. 2 in the world, who has previously said he has no plans of playing on the PGA Tour Champions.
“It doesn’t matter how old you are and who you compete against, because you’re always competing against yourself,” Langer said. “That’s the bottom line. It’s you and the golf course and the ball, and the ball doesn’t know how old you are.”
When the annual Hoag Classic tournament tees off Friday morning at Newport Beach Country Club, Langer will be going for his second title. The two-time Masters winner previously won in Orange County in 2008, when the tournament was known as the Toshiba Classic.
He’s made the cut in each of his 13 previous times playing the tournament, with six top-10 finishes.
Not bad for a former caddie who, when growing up, would ride his bicycle five miles through the woods to get to the golf course and caddie in Anhausen, Germany.
They called him “Adlerauge,” German for eagle eye, for his propensity to find golf balls in thick rough.
Meanwhile, there were several pictures of Jack Nicklaus’ swing sequence on the wall of the caddie shack, which served as inspiration.
“The only tournament I played was the caddie tournament every year, and that was against five other caddies,” Langer said at theTuesday’s event, presented by Hoag Orthopedic Institute. “I really had no clue. I never putted on fast greens … I just had this dream of trying to play on the European tour for a while and make a living.”
He started that journey at 18, five decades ago, after a poor childhood growing up in a village of 800.