‘It’s time to quit’ – Masters champion set for emotional farewell

You started to wonder if Father Time would ever catch up with Bernhard Langer.

It is 40 years since the first of his two Masters titles and the ageless German metronome has been ticking along at Augusta National for as long as many of us have been watching.

Langer’s Masters life is not only defined by his two wins in 1985 and 1993. His extraordinary Augusta record has included nine top-tens and 27 cuts made. From 1984 through to 2002, he didn’t miss a weekend in Georgia. In 2020, Langer broke his own record by becoming the oldest player in the tournament’s history to make the cut aged 63.

That remarkable display of longevity has been such that Langer wondered if he could go on forever. Past champions, of course, can continue strolling around the cathedral pines for as long as they please.

“A few years back I asked the chairman of the club, is there a time limit?” he said. “Do we age out when we’re 60? He said, ‘no, you will know when it’s time to quit’. It’s totally up to you.”

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Father Time, of course, remains undefeated.

After a torn Achilles tendon last year ended what would have been his goodbye, the 67-year-old has shown remarkable powers of recovery to return for his 41st – and final – Masters start.

“It is time to quit,” he conceded, re-gathering himself after tearing up after an epic montage of his victories shown to him here in Augusta’s resplendent press room.

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

“I walked 18 holes yesterday, and I was totally exhausted and done, and I was glad I could do it. But walking five or six days in a row on this terrain, it’s going to be really hard.”

Langer has long realised he is playing with his hands tied behind his back striking fairway woods on a second-shot golf course that requires towering cuts.

“Well, I’ve been here every year,” he smiles when asked about how this famed design has evolved.

“The goal, if I’m not mistaken, is to have the players hit similar irons into the green as they did in the 1960s or ’80s or 2000. They probably are very, very close to that. But not for me, though.”

Indeed, when Langer made his last Masters cut five years ago, he was outdriven by Bryson DeChambeau for an average of 65 yards. On that occasion, he defeated the current US Open champion by two shots.

Yet there’s only can only so longer you can fight on in that unfeasible environment, bound by an inescapable shift in time.

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“I realised again yesterday, I probably should have quit several years ago because where I’m driving it, I sometimes can’t see the flag,” he joked.

“There’s a good chance I can’t see the flag on one because I don’t get it to the top of the hill. There’s a very good chance I can’t see it on 17 and various other places. There’s par-4s when I’m hitting 3-wood into the green when other guys are hitting 8-irons, 9-irons, 7-irons. This course is not built to be hitting those kind of clubs.”

Make no mistake, if Langer’s farewell tour extends two more dates and he makes the weekend for a 28th time, he will have saved one of his finest Augusta storylines for the finale.

“Hopefully I can control myself until the 18th,” he said, “but there’s no guarantees.”

Ben Parsons is the Senior Writer at bunkered and is the man to come to for all of the latest news, across both the professional and amateur games. Formerly of The Mirror and Press Association, he is a member at Halifax Golf Club and is a long-suffering fan of both Manchester United and the Wales rugby team.