GOLF
Bill Elliot
When Mark James took Bernhard Langer aside in Munich two years ago to tell him that, no matter what, he was not going to be a captain’s pick for the 1999 Ryder Cup team, the German took it in typically flamboyant style. “Really,” he said, those hard eyes of his narrowing as he digested one of the daftest decisions ever made by a European skipper. Then he went back to practising the game that has lifted him spectacularly out of poverty and into the global sporting consciousness as well as homes in Bavaria and Florida.
Throwing tantrums never has been Bernhard’s way of dealing with the perversity of a sport that, more than most, carries within it the means to reduce hard men to basket cases. No, Langer did not whinge, did not launch a counter-offensive via the media. Hell, he didn’t even write a book.
Instead he got on with his life the way he always has, accepting the bad with the good, the stupid with the intelligent. Inside, however, he was seething. This was not merely a case of another oversized ego struggling to cope with unexpected rejection. For Langer, there always has been only one correct way to make a decision: Consider carefully all the options, weigh up the possible outcomes and then do the smart thing.
Two years ago he knew the smart thing was to select him to play in his tenth consecutive Ryder Cup and thereby employ a huge reservoir of experience that was instead left behind when James took his side across the Atlantic. The only way the captain could justify his decision was to win the match.
He nearly did, but he didn’t. Langer could have been the vital difference and so James created a monkey that will cling forever to his back.
I doubt Sam Torrance would have made the same mistake this time but we’ll never know because Langer has made his captain’s life significantly easier by playing his way into the side for The Belfry this month. “All I can ever do is to work hard and to do my best every time I play. If this means I win now and then and also I make the Ryder Cup team then that is good,” he says. “I always enjoy playing in the match. Why? Because it is so competitive that it is very satisfying. Adrenaline can be a very enjoyable drug. Maybe this will be my last time, maybe not. The most important thing though is that I conduct myself properly. Golf is only a game and there are more important things in life such as my family and my God.”
What is certain is that, suddenly, Langer is the last man standing properly erect from the great generation of himself, Seve Ballesteros, Nick Faldo, Sandy Lyle and Ian Woosnam. Born within 12 months of each other between April 1957 (Seve) and March 1958 (Woosie) this quintet provided the impetus for the European Tour to move onwards and upwards.
Their like will not be seen again, for even if another sublimely talented platoon were to emerge then the majority would opt for the US Tour as their workplace.
One by one, however, time and disenchantment is picking off these great players. Ballesteros and Lyle, sadly, are history. Faldo is not sure whether he is a course designer or a tournament golfer while Woosnam’s form fluctuates alarmingly on an almost weekly basis. No, Langer is the last one to be out there still tilting at lucrative windmills, still grinding his way ever farther away from the poverty that afflicted his family in post-war Germany.
He never was an amateur, simply because he could not afford to be. Instead he turned professional at 15 after taking up golf because he worked as a caddie at Augsburg Country Club. “My older brother Erwin worked there and so I went with him. I was fed up looking in the window of the village sweet shop and never having the pfennigs to go in and buy some,” he smiles.
Out of this unlikely background has emerged an impressive sportsman. A devout Christian, he talks willingly about his religion and its importance but only if asked. Teetotal for many years now, he insists on buying wine for his supper guests. Even more impressively he even asks journalists how they are, how their family is getting on. This, in the self-obsessed world of pro sport, is a rare quality. That he is a golfer of sublime quality is without doubt; of more importance, however, is the fact that he is a genuinely decent bloke whose word is still his bond. This is why his management never have found it difficult to sell Langer to the biggest blue-chip companies in Europe. Vorchsprung durch technik could be his own motto.
Fifteen years ago I helped him to write his autobiography. It was a compelling story of triumph in the face of adversity, of a little man who always thought big. Halfway through the book, however, Langer wanted to give up the ghost and the ghostwriter. “I am not sure this is such a good idea,” he said. “I mean I am just a golfer. Apart from that I am not very interesting. Will people really want to read about my life?”
In the event, many thousands chose to read how Langer had made the long climb out of the Bavarian foothills to two Masters triumphs at Augusta, typically perverse victories given the challenge of those greens and the fact that he has suffered from the yips since 1979. “Never a day goes by when I do not pray to God and give thanks for my life, my family and my success,” he says. “I think there must be a purpose to all this. Perhaps one day I will be a missionary. That would be nice.”
At The Belfry, it would appear, God will not just be on America’s side.
Sam Torrance is probably offering up thanks to someone or something at this very moment.
European team
The first 10 players are the leading eligible players on the European Order or Merit
Darren Clarke: Northern Ireland, 33. Ryder Cups: 1997-99
Padraig Harrington: Ireland, 30. Ryder Cups: 1999
Thomas Bjorn: Denmark, 30. Ryder Cups: 1997
Colin Montgomerie: Scotland, 38. Ryder Cups: 1991-99
Pierre Fulke: Sweden, 30. Ryder Cups: 0
Lee Westwood: England, 28. Ryder Cups: 1997-99.
Paul McGinlay: Ireland, 34. Ryder Cups: 0
Niclas Fasth: Sweden, 29. Ryder Cups: 0
Bernhard Langer: Germany, 44. Ryder Cups: 1981-97
Phillip Price: Wales, 34. Ryder Cups: 0
Sergio Garcia: Spain, 23, wild card. Ryder Cups: 1999
Jesper Parnevik: Sweden, 36, wild card. Ryder Cups: 1997-99