How does a 67-year-old beat 33 players at the Masters? He explained

AUGUSTA, Ga. — For Bernhard Langer, it hasn’t been a fair fight on this golf course for years.

He’s 67 now, 32 years removed from his second of two Masters wins and this week, you’ve likely heard, he is playing in the event for the final time. His driving average Thursday was a hair over 250 yards, which was 30 yards behind “short hitter” Zach Johnson’s mark, 70 yards behind mashers like Ludvig Aberg and Cameron Young and 90 yards — a short par-3! — behind the category leader, Bryson DeChambeau. On the par-4s, Langer had just one approach of less than 150 yards and two north of 225 yards. He hit just five greens.

And yet he made just three bogeys en route to a cool 74, a score 33 players in the field couldn’t match.

There aren’t many golfers who could miss 13 greens on this course in Masters-grade conditions and shoot two over, which begs the question: How in the world does Langer do it? And keep doing it? His explanation is at once simple and endlessly complex.

”The thought is more like where do I have to land it to maybe stop it on the green?” Langer said Thursday afternoon, resplendent in a red shoulder-to-toe outfit that was a tribute to the threads he donned when he won here in 1995. “And if it doesn’t stop on the green, where can I get it up-and-down from? That’s the constant battle. What’s the easier up-and-down? Left, right, short, long?”

That fight was on full display in the first round, and, as ever, it was fascinating to watch. It’s easy at these big-ticket events to get lost in the happenings of Rory, Scottie and Brooks, but the Bernhard Show is a different kind of spectacle and no less thrilling to observe: a masterclass in course management.

Consider Langer’s approach-shot yardages on the par-4s in the first round: 186 yards; 121; 215; 157; 171; 227; 235; 195; 172; 188. That all translated, as it always does on this course for Langer, into a busy day for his hybrids and fairway woods. You don’t hear many thumps echoing off the pines when you follow Langer for 18 holes, more so tinny thwacks, which makes for tough sledding on this slippery course. “You can’t control the 3-wood or a 2-hybrid,” Langer said. “You don’t know how much it’s going to run when it hits the green.”

His first spot of trouble Thursday came at the long par-3 4th where he sent his tee shot over the green, leaving himself a nervy, short-sided chip from 30 feet above the hole. Nightmare stuff, but not for Langer, who knocked his chip to 5 feet and drained the left-edger. This is another key to his success: he holes the putts you have to hole. On Thursday, he needed just 1.33 putts per green, beating the field average by a third of a stroke.

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At the meaty par-4 5th, he had 215 into the green. He missed the green left, but in the right spot, leaving himself a makable two-putt. At 7, another missed green, this time short. Flip wedge to 7 feet, holed putt, par. At 9, another missed green, but in a manageable area: 50 feet below the hole, two-putt par. At 10, yep, another missed green — this time left but with plenty of green with which to work. Chip to two feet, par. On he went. At 11, 235 to his mark. Two thirty-five! Into that terrorizing green with water left?! NBD, as the kids say. Fairway wood to 60 feet below the hole followed by — yawn — another two-putt par. You getting the picture yet?

Langer’s only tactical errors were missing long at the par-3 12th (“took the wrong club,” he said later) and fatting a short approach into Rae’s Creek on 13, both of which led to bogies. “Then regained my composure and played fairly solid from there on in,” he said.

“Overall, it was a pretty good round for a 67-year-old to get around here at 2-under with the clubs I’m hitting.”

Pretty good? It was a marvel.

Langer will fight and claw to try and make the cut in his second round Friday. If he doesn’t, he will have played his last round in this fabled tournament.      

“You can tell already my voice is breaking a bit just realizing it’s going to be my last competitive Masters,” Langer told the media Tuesday.

But he also know the time is right.

“I’m just not competitive on this course anymore,” he said. “We’re playing, what, 7,500-plus yards, and I’m used to playing courses around 7,100. I can still compete there but not at this distance.”

Still, it’s been fun watching him try.