Prior to the inaugural Greater Gwinnett Championship, Bernhard Langer had never played a round of golf at TPC Sugarloaf, the host course for the Champions Tour event.
Langer had played only a handful of rounds in Atlanta during his PGA Tour career, teeing it up for the first time at Sugarloaf in a practice round two days after making a brief Sunday splash early in the final round of the Masters.
In his pro-am round at Sugarloaf, Langer started 4-under after four holes and likely would have turned in a 65 or so had he kept an official scorecard.
Like most of the players in the field for the first-year Champions Tour event, Langer struggled in the rain-delayed opening round, carding a 1-over 73 after bogeys on his final two holes Saturday morning to complete his round.
Langer trailed first round leader Michael Allen by six strokes when the second round began later Saturday morning. But after a tournament-best 66 was tied for second heading to the final round, one behind surprise leader Esteban Toledo, a newcomer to the Champions Tour whose lone career victory came on the Nationwide Tour.
Only two players shot lower than 69 the final round on the demanding Sugarloaf layout, with Langer’s closing 67 matching the low score of the day. He took control of the tournament midway through the final round despite some shaky play tee to green, and finished with a 10-under 206 total, three strokes ahead of Tom Lehman and Tom Pernice, who tied for 2nd.
It was the second win for Langer on the Champions Tour this year and gave him five top-three finishes in his first six starts of 2013. Since joining the tour late in the 2007 season, Langer has 18 wins and 35 top-three finishes, and has led the money list each year since ‘08 with the exception of 2011, when he was out for four months with an injury.
After his win at Sugarloaf, Langer appears headed for a fifth money title in his six full seasons as a Champions Tour member.
Langer overtook Toledo for the lead early in the final round with three consecutive birdies at holes 3, 4 and 5. After rolling in birdie putts in the 16-to-18-foot range at 3 and 4, Langer was still one off the lead, as Toledo birdied the short par-3 second and matched Langer’s birdie at the par-5 fourth.
But Toledo hit his second shot in the creek fronting the fifth green. Following a drive he said he “crushed,” Langer lofted his second over the tree guarding the left side pin position and spun it back to within 10 feet of the hole. He holed the putt to take a one-shot lead over Toledo, and never relinquished his advantage despite a stretch of uncharacteristically sub-standard play that began when he missed a 6-footer for a fourth straight birdie at the par-5 sixth.
Langer three-putted the seventh from inside 20 feet and missed the green on each of the next four holes. But he played those four holes in 1-under, saving pars with a deft pitch on the eighth, a semi-bunker shot from bare ground on the ninth and a sand save at the 11th.
The hole that solidified Langer’s position at the top of the leader board was the par-5 10th, where he drove in a bunker, hit the lip with his second and watched his third scoot over the green. But Langer holed his pitch shot from about 12 yards to boost his lead to two over Toledo, who settled for par after being over the green in two.
When Toledo made double bogeys on 11 and 12 and Tom Pernice also made double on the 12th, Langer’s lead was four. Pernice holed his second for eagle on the par-4 15th and Tom Lehman birdied three of the last four holes to put a little pressure on the leader. But Langer responded with some superb play down the stretch.
Langer landed his second within two feet on the tough-to-birdie 16th and closed out his win in style with a wedge to three feet at the 18th for a birdie to match Lehman for low round of the day.
After his round, Langer offered some kind words for the course that hosted the PGA Tour for more than a decade before returning to tournament status after a four-year absence.
“When I first stepped foot on Sugarloaf, it reminded me of Augusta,” Langer observed. “I just enjoy playing the golf course. It’s a test. If you pull off shots you get rewarded. If you miss a few, you get punished.”
Langer credited his short game with saving him during his otherwise difficult stretch from holes 8 to 11. He put in some work on his short game to prepare for the Masters, and that work paid off the following week.
“I missed four greens and I was one-under par. That’s what kept me in the lead and then I started playing some very good golf again. From 12 on, I made better swings.”
The usually reserved Langer actually displayed some signs of emotion down the stretch, revving up the already applauding fans after he “stuffed” his tee shot at the 16th.
“I do have a good temperament,” Langer said. “But I am more emotional now than I was in my 20s and 30s.
Langer played on the PGA Tour from 1984 until he turned 50 in 2007, but was only a Tour member about half that time. He won the Masters in 1985 and ’93, with his only other win in the U.S. coming at Hilton Head the week after his first Masters triumph.
He won more than 60 tournaments around the world, and quickly became the dominant player on the Champions Tour after turning 50. Langer scored three victories as a “rookie” in 2008, and followed with four wins in ’09 and five in 2010, including both the U.S. and British Senior Opens. After recovering from a thumb injury suffered in a biking accident in 2011, Langer won twice last year, and added five runner-up finishes and a total of eight top-3s.
After beautiful weather for the two pro-am days, the Greater Gwinnett Championship got off to a wet start, with the first round delayed by four hours and only 24 of the 81 players completing play on Friday.
Allen led by one shot over Bart Bryant, Mark O’Meara, Mark Calcavecchia and Toledo, with Langer tied for 29th. Langer and Jeff Sluman both shot 66 on Saturday, with Langer vaulting all the way into a tie for 2nd and a spot in the final group. He was paired on Sunday with Toledo, who led by at 138, and 2012 Senior PGA and U.S. Senior Open champion Roger Chapman, who was tied with Langer, Pernice and Calcavecchia for 2nd at 139. Savannah’s Gene Sauers and Allen were next at 140.
Several of the leaders fell back in the final round, with Allen, Chapman and Sauers all dropping out of the top 10. Chien Soon Lu shot 69 to take 4th at 5-under 211, with Calcavecchia and Duffy Waldorf tying for 5th at 212. Calcavecchia had four bogeys, a double bogey, an eagle and a birdie on the front nine.
Wayne Levi, like Calcavecchia a former Bell South Classic champion at Atlanta Country Club, was among six players to tie for 7th at 213. Also finishing at 3-under were Bryant, who won the Tour Championship in 2005 at East Lake, Fred Funk, Steve Pate, Sluman and Toledo, who closed with a 75.
The scoring average for the tournament was the highest in a Champions Tour non-major since 2008 in a wind-swept event in Florida, also won by Langer.
Apart from the poor weather Friday, the first year event was a success, with a strong field and healthy ticket sales.