Bernhard Langer has been coming to St Andrews since the 1978 Open, he came within two shots of Seve in probably the most famous Championship over the Old Course six years later. But he and his senior colleagues have bizarrely never visited this corner of Fife. All that will change this week and the German, who finished 24th in The Open at Carnoustie, will be defending and going for an unprecedented fourth Senior Open title.
Is it long overdue that the Senior Open is finally being played at St Andrews?
Definitely. It’s a wonderful thing. I think only fitting that some of the all-time greats have a chance to play for the Senior Open Championship at the Home of Golf.
You played all four rounds in the 2015 Open there after winning the Senior Open at Porthcawl the year before?
I did, yeah. Probably not my all time best scoring but I played decent golf. They were tough competitions. There was tough weather at times with rain and wind and also sorts of stuff, but that’s links golf. You just never know what to expect or what’s coming the next hour or the next day.
Players speak of not understanding the hype around the Old Course on their first visit, did you feel the same?
Yes, it was the same with me. When I first played it, I actually didn’t like it at all. But you know, I was only 18 and I had never really seen a lot of links golf before.
I didn’t like the idea of standing on some of the tees and looking over a sand dune and not really knowing what’s out there, and I thought I hit a good tee shot and it ended up in one of the pot bunkers and I didn’t really appreciate the way the greens were designed.
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The more I played it, the more I loved it, because I can see what the architect had in mind and how great the course plays, and it doesn’t matter if the wind is right to left or left to right, or into us or downwind, it’s still a challenge. It’s the design that made it that way.
It came to be that I fell in love with the course, which is very unusual, because most courses I like right away, but I didn’t like St Andrews the first time I played it, but now I love it.
Interview continues on the next page, where Langer explains his epic battle with Seve Ballesteros in 1984…
Going back to 1984 where you came so close, just two shots behind Seve and finished tied runner-up there. What are your memories of that experience?
That is the one that probably got away from me. I felt I had the game to win the Open Championship and I got myself into contention many times, not just once or twice.
St Andrews in 1984 was one of those times when I seem to remember that I outplayed Seve tee to green, but he outputted me, and in the end, he was two shots better than Tom Watson and I.
It was fun being part of that. It wasn’t fun missing a lot of the putts that I feel I could have made or should have made. But that’s golf. There’s 14 different clubs and you’ve got to be in command of all 14 of them and not just 13.
Perhaps it was the one that got away, but you certainly made up for that in the senior ranks, haven’t you? It’s one that you clearly relish.
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Yeah, very much so. I’d certainly feel it got away. I had a couple chances at Royal St. George’s and another second when David Duval won at Lytham. There were a number of chances where I with a little bit better putting or a couple of different breaks, or just better golf, I would be the Open champion, but it never happened.
But yeah, on the other hand, I won two Masters, which is kind of strange in a sense because if you don’t putt well there, you’re not going to win.
Are you a better player now at 60 than you were when you were 30?
I think there is certain part of my game that are actually better. I’m probably a better driver of the ball than I was in my younger days. I might be a better 3-wood player, as well, and the short game’s been pretty consistent. When I was younger I had times when the short game was really good and at times it wasn’t so good.
But, you know, as you mature and as you learn still more about the technique of how to play the game, the swing should become actually more repeatable, more steady because you’re not changing your swing every year and every few months, and I did that when I was younger. I was changing my swing from a reverse C technique to powering the ball more, and that took a period of several years, so you’re always in the process of trying to get better and get better and get better.
Now the last few years I’ve pretty much arrived with my swing with where I want to be at times.
In the younger days, I was constantly trying to improve certain parts of my backswing, at followthrough or impact, and it felt like there was change and change and more change, and so the last 10, 15 years, I’ve arrived where I feel I don’t have to make that many changes anymore.
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