Bernhard Langer - Part 4 (The Majors and Early Ryder Cup)

Music playing  00:00

Mike Gonzalez  00:10

If you look back on the venues that you played in Europe, and let's set the Open Championship courses aside because we'll talk about some of that later. But what were some of your favorite places to play around Europe?

Langer, Bernhard  00:29

Yeah, initially I didn't like Links golf. I remember playing St. Andrews the very first time, I'm going "that's not golf. That's a bunch of baloney. You don't know where you going. You think you hit a good shot, you end up in a pot bunker. And you can't see what's happening. This is not golf." I was not not happy, not thrilled and excited until, later on, it became one of my favorite golf courses, St. Andrews. I could see what the architect was doing. And actually I love playing Links golf now. I love hitting it off that sandy turf and spinning the ball and you know, chasing it up low and having the option of chipping with a four iron or a lob wedge, whatever you prefer, or putting it from 40 yards away, all those kinds of things. It's fascinating and it's very unique, and I love it, but it took me a while to warm up to it. I did fall in love with the Masters right away with the tournament at Augusta. I'd never seen a Golf Course like it, you know, I was probably 25 or so when I first came over to get invited. And I had never seen manicured fairways and greens like that, just pure, just pristine and fell in love right away. And I liked the wide fairways. They had no rough in the early days, in the 1980s. There was just big fairways and pine needles. And it was all about your second shot, not so much about the tee shot it was more about the angle into the green and then iron game and short game and I kind of felt that was good for me and I felt comfortable and my creativity came out you know, when I missed the green and all that kind of stuff. Obviously, everybody loves Pebble Beach I think, or Cypress Point. Those are just, you know mystical places where the beauty of the land is so magical. Even if you don't play great, you still have a good time just looking at the ocean and the scenery. But I pretty much learned to compete with all grasses, with all types of golf courses, because I would travel to Japan, I would travel to South Africa, where they had totally different grasses, very grainy than what I grew up on in Europe. Then I started living in Florida, and I had to learn to play Bermuda and read Bermuda greens, which is quite different from bent and all that kind of stuff. I'm not a big fan of Poa Annua. But so whenever we go play in California I know I need more more patience with my putter because it's usually more difficult.

Mike Gonzalez  03:36

Yeah, well as I said at the top we could spend hours and hours just going through each of your wins. You know as you look at the various tours, 42 wins I believe still the current number on the European tour which was second all time to Seve. We're gonna talk about the Champions Tour in a minute because we had to update our statistics on you Bernard. You keep writing your golf story. Most of our guests are long done writing their golf story.

Langer, Bernhard  04:06

We're not done yet. No, besides that you're only 66 right? I mean, you know you're a young man. That's the one thing I don't hear very often anymore. The young German. That doesn't happen anymore.

Mike Gonzalez  04:25

I told Bruce I don't dare tell you what 68 is gonna feel like at least that's what...

Langer, Bernhard  04:30

I can imagine.

Mike Gonzalez  04:34

Father Time always wins right . At some point it gets you.

Langer, Bernhard  04:37

Yep, yep.

Mike Gonzalez  04:38

Well, anyway, great success around the world. You know, Bruce and I have talked to a lot, since we talked with you the first time, we've probably talked to Bruce I don't know 40-45 of the ladies. And of course they, thanks to the sponsorship of Colgate Palmolive, used to spend a lot of time in Asia, particularly in Japan, playing. And so we'll probably ask you the same question we've asked the ladies because what they talked about in Japan because of the nature of the golf and how you have to travel long distances typically from where they stayed to the golf, it built a lot of great camaraderie amongst the women. And there was always a couple of buses, there was the serious bus, and then there was the party bus. But it certainly did a lot to build their camaraderie. Was it true with the men as well, when you traveled to some of these places?

Langer, Bernhard  05:33

Maybe not so much, because there wasn't a party bus and another bus, there was just a bus every half an hour or every hour. And whoever you were with on the bus kind of made it the party bus or not. You know, the early days when European Golf was very much we traveled on buses, from the course to the hotel and back. And we stayed in the same hotels. We ate in the same restaurants so that, yeah, you created some friendships and camaraderie. Got to know some of the players. The language was often a problem, because some of the Spaniards couldn't speak English. And, my English wasn't brilliant either. Or, but whether it's the French, the Italians, the Swedes, not everybody was fluent in English, and that made it difficult if you didn't speak four or five different languages, you were already limited in who you can talk to.

Mike Gonzalez  06:37

So no karaoke parties on the bus then, in Japan.

Langer, Bernhard  06:41

Not that I recall. No, we weren't, we weren't good enough singers either.

Mike Gonzalez  06:46

Well, that could be. I think the ladies could sing and they could dance. Let's talk a little bit if we can then about the majors. You know, we talked a little bit about the Masters, particularly your two wins and so forth. You had a you had a great record in the Masters, not just with the two wins, but I think over time, 27 cuts made over 38 starts and I would assume most of the missed cuts came more recently.

Langer, Bernhard  07:16

That's correct. Yeah, I had a nice streak going. I don't know how many it was in a row, maybe 17 or 19 in a row made cuts which is pretty special. As I said, I just love the Golf Course. I love the challenge of fast undulating greens and positioning the ball in the right place and all that kind of stuff. So the Masters, I felt very comfortable. British or the Open Championship, I learned how to play as I said, I learned how to play Links golf. I was a pretty good wind player. And I learned quickly and I always thought I would win The Open Championship. I thought that would be the one I would win multiple times. And never did. I had a couple of seconds or a bunch of thirds and few others I should have, could have but it never happened. The U.S. Open I really struggled with and the PGA. I don't know if it was lack of preparation because I was usually playing in Europe that time of the year and I just flew over to play the major and then flew back so you know with time change and different courses. But one thing I remember earlier in the U.S. Open was the fairways were very tight. The rough was extremely long and they had rough right to the edge of the green right around the collar in the early days. And I did not have that flop shot. I didn't know how to you know if I missed the green by two feet and I'm in the long, fluffy stuff. I saw guys like Andy Bean or you know a lot of guys they were just brilliant out of there, they could get it close and I didn't know how to do it. I looked and watched and tried to learn and it just took me a long time to figure out how to play that shot. And I probably wasn't a straight enough driver so I missed too many fairways and you know, always raked up bogeys here and there. I did get into contention twice, I think in the U.S. Open at Olympic Club and Shinnecock where I finished in the top eight or whatever it was. But otherwise it was often a missed cut or not happy, not good enough. And the same with the PGA Championship when it used to be in August. I just never really showed up on the leaderboard at all. So, still baffled why not because my game should have been good enough to, you know, compete at the highest level for a number of years but it just didn't happen in those two tournaments.

Mike Gonzalez  10:01

We've talked a lot with our guests, particularly about the PGA Championship. Bernard, you know where that came in the schedule. A lot of the guys, particularly back in the old days, they just said, you know, by the time the heat of August came around, and the PGA Championship, we were tired. We'd had a long year alread and...

Langer, Bernhard  10:22

I personally wouldn't say that because I was young, I was fit, I was eager to play, I wasn't tired. You know, I would play till December, whatever. I kept playing through as often as I could, just enjoying the game. But I think it might have just been lack of preparation and just not being informed for whatever reason, maybe I didn't like the heat. That was another thing. August in America is always hot, no matter where you go. And growing up in Germany, I wasn't used to playing in 90-95 degrees with 80% humidity or 90%, that wasn't my thing. But those are excuses, should have played better.

Mike Gonzalez  11:11

There was something you know, I look back oh maybe going up to 2010 or something. And, I just looked at, you know, how the Euros fared in the U.S. Open and the PGA Championship in particular. And there just weren't that many European winners for a long time?

Langer, Bernhard  11:32

Well, I think I have an answer to that. Before the world rankings came out, which was 1986, there was no access for European golfers on the PGA Tour. They didn't invite us very much. They didn't include us. There were very few competing. So when I grew up on the European tour, we were kind of in awe of the Americans. We thought they're the greatest players in the world, they're the best. And you know, we're just sort of second class citizens, in a sense on the Golf Tour. And that all changed when we got included in the majors and in other tournaments. And all of a sudden, I got the chance, I mean, I should speak for myself, but I got the chance to compete against the best. Against Nicklaus, Watson, Trevino, Player, whoever, you know, the best they had on a regular basis. And I realized I could stack up with them. For the most part, you know, maybe I wasn't a Nicklaus or a Tiger Woods, or this or that. But I was still at a very high level of where I could win just about on any Golf Course, if I played my best. So my perception, and this happened in the Ryder Cup, too, we were in awe of the Americans when we played them in the Ryder Cup in the early days, till we realized that they're not much better than we are. We're at the same level, we can win majors, we can beat them on any given day. And that changed everything. And I think a big reason was that we were given access to play the U.S. tour, and compete against the best on a regular basis and realize, yeah, we were as good as them.

Mike Gonzalez  13:27

You know, the point you make about access, I do remember Baker-Finch making this point where, you know, back in the day, at one point, perhaps he would have been ranked top 30 in the world or so they already had a couple of their Australians, you know, like, like a Devlin and a Graham or whoever. And those were the slots. They were gone for Australians and so they didn't get an invite.

Langer, Bernhard  13:48

Yeah, yeah, that's how it was still the world rankings came out. And then if you were in the top 50 or so, you had a good chance to get a few starts in America. And certainly, you would be considered for playing in the majors, which are the ones we wanted to play in. So Bernard, one question about some of the early days. Did you have any experience with the small ball? Did you play the small ball as a young man? I did when I grew up as a caddy playing golf I actually played with bamboo shafts. My first four clubs, two woods, three iron, seven iron and a putter all had bamboo shafts, and we played the small ball. And I was about 15, 16, 17, a young assistant Pro. When I first heard there's a different size golf ball. There's a U.S. ball that's larger. And I was playing the small Topflite believe it or not, the 162 Topflite, which went forever, but you couldn't control it with the irons. When you're younger, just want to hit it far. You don't care where the nine iron goes? And then yeah, later on, we adopted the larger ball on tour and we had to switch. And yeah, it was a bit of a change. Absolutely. Do you think do you some, just some talking, thinking about my experience with it, but do you think that when you were forced to go to the 1.68, do you think that was a big transition from the small ball to that? And did some of the European players learn to play better when they used the big ball?  Yeah, those are great questions. So especially the second one, but it didn't take me very long, because I played a lot of golf. And I had to get used to the larger ball and to figure out the new distances and what it would do, how much it would curve, and all that. But you know, within a few months, you had it down pretty much. Did it make me a better golfer? Maybe? I don't know. You know, once I was forced to play the bigger ball, there was no way back. There was no turning back. This was it. And I didn't contemplate it much. I didn't focus on it. I just played the ball they made me or gave me and that was it.

Mike Gonzalez  16:23

You know, we talk a little bit about equipment history on the show, Bernard. And of course, we're a week removed now from the USGA and the R&A's announcement of the golf ball dial-back. If you listen to social media, you'd think the sky is falling, and the world's going to end soon. Do you think it was really that big a deal, the change that they made?

Langer, Bernhard  16:46

Well, I don't know all the details yet, but I wasn't a huge fan of dialing it back. I understand. You know, golf gets more expensive as you have to buy more land to build the Golf Course, to water it, to irrigate it, to whatever it takes, take care of it. And some of the old golf courses are too short now for competition. But you know, part of the fascination of golf is hitting it far. Everybody, when you talk golf, everybody tells you "Oh, I hit a whatever, I hit a tee shot 285" or whatever it was, you know, for an amateur. They don't talk much about chipping one in or making a 20 foot putt or whatever it is. So it's part of the fascination. And when you think back to the history of the game of golf, you know, who comes to mind when you talk about hitting a long ball and people want to see it? John Daly. Right. John Daly was the longest guy in the world for a number of years. And he had a large following and mostly due to hitting the ball far. And then it was Bryson Dechambeau after him. And it was Tiger Woods before him. And, you know, it was often Nicklaus was.. Nicklaus was the long one back in the 60s. Yeah, unbelievably long. And that's what people like to see, they like to see the long ball and what they can do, but I can see, you know, there's arguments on both sides. I personally feel they should have done something 30 years ago, but they missed that boat. And now it's difficult, we've always played the same equipment. If they're forced to make a ball just for the pros, it wouldn't be feasible for the ball manufacturers to spend millions and millions to make a product that they can't sell. It makes no sense. So we've got to stick with the same equipment. And, you know, maybe what they're doing is good so we don't see people hit it 400 yards in five years or 10 years. You know, keep it where it is and no more. I have a question for you then. You talk about the metal club. What would your opinion be if you took the metal club and reduced the size of it down to something between where it is now and what you used as a wooden club? Do you think that would make any difference? I think that's a possibility. But you could take a three wood, a three metal, okay, right now, make it into a nine degree or eight degree. It would go just as far almost as a driver. I'm not sure that's the answer. I think the answer may be to make the ball bigger. So now you have more resistance in the wind. And they wouldn't fly as far. 

Devlin, Bruce  19:58

And it would curve more. 

Langer, Bernhard  20:00

And it would curve more, and then, you know, then everybody would lose some distance. You want to make it somewhat fair where the relativity of somebody that hits 200 yards, loses the same percentage as somebody who hits it 350, or whatever in the air. So that's the tricky part. And I'm not an expert in that, but I'm sure they have people that should know that kind of stuff. But I always wondered, why don't they go to a larger size golf ball, or a different compression golf ball, that reduces the distance from that standpoint. And if they go to a larger ball, you can make the hole slightly larger. If you say, well, a larger ball won't go in hole anymore. Well, then make the hole a little bit bigger to make it similar to what we have right now.  Some interesting thoughts.

Mike Gonzalez  20:57

Or they justcould go back and give them Balata balles and let them play those old spinny things. 

Langer, Bernhard  21:04

Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez  21:06

 I want to get back to the The Open Championship where you mentioned that that was the one you probably thought you would have won. Bernard Langer, just for our listeners, seven top threes, six of those were top twos. And you look at 1981, 1985, 1993, he went second, third and third at Royal St. George is one of my favorite places. I thought for sure you were going to win there.

Langer, Bernhard  21:32

Yeah. As I said, I always felt later and once I figured out how to play Links golf, I felt comfortable. I thought I would win an Open Championship and had my opportunities. I probably should have won the 1985 Open Championship at Royal St. George's I had just won the Masters, I had a lot of confidence. I was co-leader, after three rounds with David Graham, and just had a really, I missed a very short putt on the first green which shook me up a bit. Then I had a horrible break on the fourth hole when I hit a Marshall on my second shot where he shouldn't have stood where he was. I had a beautiful one iron, hit his foot and it went the opposite direction and I made bogey when I might have made birdie or par. You get bad breaks and you get good breaks. So I'm not complaining. I've had my share of both. But when you look back, you realize if one or two of those things hadn't happened. Yeah, you might be Open champion now and I'm not because I came down the 18th and I had to make birdie on eighteen and I had a chip and rolled it past the hole and that was it. But that might have been my best chance. There were many others as you say. And, either my putter let me down or I wasn't good enough at the time to just pull it off.

Mike Gonzalez  23:06

1984, the year before your first Masters, T-2 at the Old Course, that's the one that Seve won.

Langer, Bernhard  23:13

Yeah, 

Mike Gonzalez  23:13

Some thirds at Turnberry and Lytham and then the last one was at almost 40 years old, you finished tied fifth at the Old Course in 2005.

Langer, Bernhard  23:25

Yeah, I love the Old Course. It's a phenomenal Golf Course, withstood the test of time. It's getting a bit short now, you know, I watched this year and or whatever it was and they're driving four of the par fours or something. They're reaching them with a driver, you know, they reach 18, they reach nine and 10 and 12. And, yeah, for a major championship. That may not be what they had in mind and some course just don't have the room to move the tees back. It's a problem.

Mike Gonzalez  24:03

Yeah. Before we turn to some of the team play you've been involved in I wanted to talk about playoff records. It's something that we weren't talking about back when we first got together with you but Bruce and I have compiled some data since then. I look at your PGA playoff record ,one win and two losses and to be fair, your European playoff record eight wins, six losses and two ties. So interesting, we never see the ties but at some point you agreed to sort of share the prize or the trophy with the another co-winner. What were the circumstances involved when that happened? Yeah, first of all, I think I'm the only professional golfer who tied twice or shared the first prize.  I've never seen that. 

Langer, Bernhard  24:42

I don't know of anybody else who has done that. But, the first one was that Trophy Lancome. Seve and I were tied. We went four extra holes and got dark, we couldn't see any more. So the official came and said, Okay, you guys are back tomorrow at 8am to finish this off, or you can tie right now and decide you're both gonna be co-winners. So we looked at each other and I had a flight to go to Japan or whatever, he had a flight to go somewhere else. And nobody was really interested in coming back Monday morning. So we said alright, let's just share it and move on. And same thing happened at Valderrama. I finished tied with Colin Montgomery, I think in the Volvo Masters. We played two holes, I believe this time and it got dark. And we were given the option again, you know, you can come back Monday morning, early and decide who's gonna win or you can share the prize right now. And we both felt, well, let's just share it and move on. So very, very unusual circumstances. But yeah, playoffs are unique. You know, you don't, you've got to hit one great shot at the right time to win. Or if you make one little mistake, or no mistake, and the other guy, you know, hits a brilliant shot, it's all over. It's a fine line of how aggressive you're going to be. Do you want to go all out and take the chance to win it, but you can lose it as well, if you don't pull it off. So it's always tricky. So to give you an idea of the compilation of these numbers, of all of the great players, all the women, all the men, what do you think their winning percentage is in playoffs? We're talking about the greatest players that have ever played, what do you think their winning percentage is? 50%. Not quite, 43%. Which to me is remarkable when you think about it.  It just tells you how like exactly what you said, you know, do you gamble to try and win in the playoff? Or do you wait for the other guy to make a mistake? So it's a bit of a toss of a coin really, isn't it? Yeah, and I think that percentage is that low because it's sometimes maybe where, you know, you said the greatest players or the best players and they only won 43% I think there's an underdog mentality. You know, you play against somebody that's not as well known. And they say, Well, I got nothing, I got nothing to lose. I mean, everybody expects Jack Nicklaus to win this playoff or Tiger Woods or whatever,

Devlin, Bruce  27:45

 I'm gonna beat him.  Yeah, and I'm just gonna, you know, if I lose, that's what everybody thinks it will happen anyways, and it doesn't at time. Good point, 

Langer, Bernhard  27:55

It's a tricky situation.

Mike Gonzalez  27:58

Let's talk a little bit about team play. And then we'll come back to the Champions Tour play and the transition from regular tour to Champions Tour. You had a chance to represent Germany quite a bit in the World Cup didn't you?

Langer, Bernhard  28:13

I did. Yeah. And I could have played more than I think I played 12. Is that correct? 

Mike Gonzalez  28:17

Right. 

Langer, Bernhard  28:18

I could have played more, but I sometimes chose not to. But yeah, I usually enjoyed team golf. Problem is often I didn't have a very good partner. Because they're not tour players, they were actually teaching pros for the most part in the early years. And so you know, so you're playing an extra week of golf, you travel somewhere, you represent your country, which is great, but you have no chance when your partner is a teaching pro. And so that's why I sometimes didn't play and participate. But we did have a reasonable amount of success. I remember winning it twice, I think with Torsten Giedeon, one time in Orlando, and then Marcel Siem might have been the second one, I think, and one time I won the individual as well. So it was always a great event. It's fun to be somewhere where the best players of the world are present. And you see, I mean, I saw people play barefoot, you know, people from I don't know, Tahiti or somewhere. In the early days, they would show up in skirts and barefeet and I'm going "What the heck is that? Where are they from?" You know, that kind of thing. So you got to meet people from all around the globe and exchange a little bit and learn about their culture and this and that. So that was always fascinating.

Mike Gonzalez  29:58

You represented the Germany three times I think in the Alfred Dunhill Cup, but the big one that we certainly want to spend a little bit of time with is talking about the Ryder Cup because, you know, as I look at the Ryder Cup record in the years you represented Team Europe, I guess at the time was, as I said earlier, a very transformative time for the Ryder Cup. And, I think you played in some of the most interesting times for that event. And were probably part of a team that really put it on the map as Europe began getting competitive. As you said, you started believing that you could compete with these guys. So let's just go back to the very start of your Ryder Cup career as a player which would have been at Walton Heath in 1981, when you played for John Jacobs and faced an American team that was led by David Marr.

Langer, Bernhard  30:55

Yeah, it was a very formidable U.S. team, maybe the best team ever assembled in the Ryder Cup history in terms of U.S. players. They played phenomenal and we weren't up to it. It was my first Ryder Cup experience. I was very excited. I might have been the best European player that year in 1981, according to the money list and all that, but I didn't play extremely well. And it was an eye opener, you know, I was talking to Sandy Lyle, I think he was one day seven under after 15 holes and he lost three and two or something like that. It just shows you how good the Americans played. But as I said earlier, as the world rankings came about, and we got more opportunity to play against the Americans, we felt more and more comfortable. You weren't in awe anymore when you were paired against the Tom Watson or Trevino or Nicklaus or whoever Raymond Floyd. And you just felt like, oh, I can beat this guy. You know, if I play good, I can beat him. And that's what happened. Just two years later in, we were in Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, Florida. And we lost by one point, it came down to the very last match. I remember it vividly. It was Tom Watson against Bernhard Gallacher. And we were all out there watching them play the last hole or two. And, you know, if Gallacher had beaten Watson, we would have won the Ryder Cup, first time in a long time. And it happened, that Watson beat Gallacher and we lost again. But even though we lost in 1983, in the team room, we felt like we were this close, you know, we're as good as them. And we're gonna beat them real soon, sooner or later it's gonna happen. And sure enough, 1985 comes around and we won, first time in forever it seemed right. I don't know when the last European victory was but it was a very, very long time. And then it kept going, you know, and it created a different culture of European Tour Golf. We had what we call the Big Five: Seve, Sandy Lyle, Nick Faldo, Woosnam and myself. We were all major winners in the years to come. We were all in the Ryder Cup for several years in a row. We kind of became the backbone of European golf and European Ryder Cup golf for 10-15 years, I think to come. And it made a huge difference for European golf. You know, people realized around the world, including America, that we have very good golfers that we can compete against anybody, on any level anywhere. And it was very beneficial for the European tour. We had a big issue because the Ryder Cup was originally owned by the British PGA and till the 1980s. Now, what does a German or Spaniard like Seve or anybody from the continent have to do with the British PGA? Nothing zero. So, we were talking one day and we were giving up a week of our lives. You know, full bore, gave it all that we have for nothing, we didn't get paid. We didn't want to get paid. But we didn't want the money to go to the British PGA. We had no association with them. And we didn't know what they were doing with the money either. And yet, we're giving up a week of our lives. If we win, it's okay. But if we lose we get criticized by the media left and right. And this and that and it could affect your career. Actually, because there's a lot of pressure and all of that. So, one time we said this has to change, and we were literally revolting. We were striking. going on strike, we said, we're not going to play the Ryder Cup. Unless the Ryder Cup will be owned by the European tour. They need a stake in it, we want some say so of how it's run, where the money goes, what happens and all that kind of stuff. And they finally gave in and we took over ,the European tour took over which made the Ryder Cup into a much bigger deal, a much better tournament, more beneficial. Some of the money that was earned went into the physio trucks for instance, that would follow us from week to week where we could work out and get treatment and all of that. So that was a big step for European golf.

Mike Gonzalez  35:57

Thank you for listening to another episode of FORE the Good of the Game. And please, wherever you listen to your podcast on Apple and Spotify if you like what you hear, please subscribe, spread the word and tell your friends. Until we tee it up again, FORE the Good of the Game, so long everybody.

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