BELMONT, Mass. — The 2015 Constellation Senior Players Championship was smooth sailing for World Golf Hall of Famer Bernhard Langer, who shot a final-round 68 Sunday at Belmont Country Club to win the tournament by six strokes.
This wasn’t Langer’s first rodeo, as he won the 2014 Senior Players in Pittsburgh last season. He became the first golfer since Arnold Palmer in 1984 and 1985 to win back-to-back Senior Players titles.
“To do something Arnie did is amazing,” Langer said. “To even be mentioned in the same bracket as him is simply amazing.”
The 57-year-old German entered the day at 16 under par, eight strokes ahead of Russ Cochran, and never lost his groove throughout the round. In fact, Langer led after every round of the tournament, and his 68 actually was his worst score.
“I enjoyed playing with the lead, but you need to stay focused because you never know what can happen,” Langer said when asked about his large margin of victory. “As I said yesterday, my goal today was to break par. If I did that, I knew no one could catch me.”
At 19 under, Langer finished six strokes ahead of runner-up Kirk Triplett, with Cochran, Colin Montgomery and Joe Durant nine shots off the pace.
“There were a lot of great champions out there today,” Langer said. “My hat goes off to Kirk Triplett. What an amazing score he had today.”
Triplett, who fired a final-round 64, appeared to feel the same way about his colleague, commenting on Langer’s preparation and personality.
“He (Langer) hasn’t been winning a lot of tournaments this year, but what’s impressive to me about Bernhard obviously is his preparation and his competitive spirit,” Triplett said. “I mean, he’s just a wonderful guy to play with. He tries his hardest on every shot.”
Said Langer: “I’m an extremely competitive person, in no matter what I do. Even if you play ping-pong with me, I’m going to give my best. In golf, you always want to win because it’s no fun playing for 50th place.”
The victory earned Langer 810 Charles Schwab Cup points, shooting him into second place in the overall standings at 1,444, 172 behind Montgomerie.
Thumbnail photo via Twitter/@ChampionsTour
