Bernhard Langer just won the Charles Schwab Cup for the third time.
He gives new meaning to the word “domination.”
What he does to the Champions Tour goes beyond domination and he should dominate when you consider what he is up against.
The sad fact is that the current Champions Tour is suffering from a really bad case of what we call Journeyman-itis for lack of a better word.
The symptoms of Journeyman-itis include too many players in the final Schwab Cup top 10 who were guys no one gave much notice during their playing days on the regular tour. Too many guys you wouldn’t get out of bed to go watch, even if the tournament tickets were free.
When you look at the final point standings for the Schwab Cup, the glaring factor that stands out is that Langer is the only player in that top 10 to win a major.
Let’s review that top 10, shall we?
First you have Langer, winner of two Masters titles. He had three wins on the PGA Tour and two of them happened to be majors.
In second place is Colin Montgomerie. Zero wins on the PGA Tour, a bunch of European Tour wins, no majors for Monty.
Paul Goydos finished third. Two career PGA Tour wins.
Scott McCarron in fourth, had three career wins.
Joe Durant, four wins, played out there seemingly forever.
Miguel-Angel Jimenez, no wins over here, a bunch over there, no majors.
Woody Austin is lucky number seven, four wins, one bent putter over his head.
Kevin Sutherland at number eight had one PGA Tour win.
Tom Pernice Jr. had two.
Duffy Waldorf had four.
That’s your top 10. Seriously? Goydos, McCarron, Durant, Austin, Sutherland? If they were playing a fivesome at your club, you’d probably give it a “ho-hum” and wonder if they played in less than six hours.
Journeyman-itis. It is rampant and appears contagious.
John Daly came out on the Champions Tour this season and they featured the heck out of him in all their commercials on The Golf Channel.
So what did Daly give us? No top 10s, one T-11. Nice work John.
No wonder Langer wins everything.
He now has 29, yes 29 victories out there, second only to Hale Irwin’s 45 wins, a number no one will match out there, not even Bernie.
Nicklaus still holds the mark with eight senior majors. Langer is right behind him with seven, tied with Irwin.
Did we mention that Langer won a ridiculous 42 times on the European Tour? He’s supposed to dominate stiffs like Goydos, McCarron, Durant and Pernice.
The sad premise of the Champions Tour is that they are asking us to believe that guys who weren’t good enough to compete with Langer in his prime should be good enough to compete with him now.
Ladies and gentlemen, it’s not happening.
The fact is that Langer was and still is really good and the rest really are not.
We’re not ready to include Monty with the journmen. Thirty-one European Tour wins gets you a lot of respect but zero on the PGA Tour tempers that enthusiasm.
So let’s get down to the nitty-gritty here.
Langer is now 59 years old and this is his third straight Schwab Cup title.
For the past three seasons, he has been first on that tour in scoring, money winnings, greens in regulation, ball striking, birdie average and all the rest they keep track of.
The bottom line is that he’s simply too damn good for the rest of these guys.
How does Langer describe it:
“Very blessed, very fortunate.”
And to that, we should all say:
AMEN!
