Can a 68-year-old legend beat Tiger Woods? We might soon find out

Nothing says happy new year quite like the arrival of Bernhard Langer in a media center at a senior event in Florida, and there Langer was the other day, 68 years old and still very much at it, taking questions about the state of his game in the preamble to the Chubb Classic presented by Servpro at the Tiburón Golf Club in Naples, a two-hour cross-state drive from Langer’s home in Boca Raton.

I am not there this year but I’ve been there in the past and if you like your golf tournaments mellow and under control — well, let me just say this: the Chubb Classic presented by Servpro at the Tiburón Golf Club in Naples will never be confused for the 2025 Ryder Cup at the Black course at the Bethpage State Park in Farmingdale, N.Y.

The last question posed to Langer was a doozy, a classic example of a category we like to call Only in Golf.

Tiger Woods turned 50 and he may be competing with you this year. Do you see yourself trying to beat him?

Langer: ”I try to beat everybody. It doesn’t matter who comes out here. The goal is to win. If you want to win, you need to beat him. So yes, that would be the goal.

“But my goal is not to play against Tiger Woods. My goal is to play against the golf course and myself and shoot the lowest score and then see if anybody can match that. If Tiger Woods is better, so be it.

“I’m sure we’re going to have some good matches. I hope he comes out. I hope he’s healthy enough. Nobody knows. He won’t let us know until a few weeks before. Usually that’s how he works. 

“But it would be a thrill to play against him again.

“We had a great time about a year and a half ago when we played the PNC Championship together on Sunday, when he played with Charlie, his son, and I had Jason, my son, and we spent a Sunday together. We had a wonderful time and enjoyed each other’s company.”

Three quick notes.

I. Langer, born and raised in German, speaks perfect, precise English without a wasted word.

II. Langer is far too gentlemanly to note that he and Jason defeated the father-and-son Woods team in a one-hole playoff.

III. It is conceivable that Langer and Woods could play in the same senior event and Langer could finish ahead of Woods, despite the 18-year age gap. But not likely.

For totally unscientific comparison, I looked at the 11 major events in which Woods and Langer played in the same fields since Langer turned 50, in the summer of 2007.

For instance, in April 2008, Langer missed the cut at the Masters and Woods finished in a tie for second.

In 2018, Langer — at age 60! — had a T38 finish at Augusta and a T24 finish at the British Open. But Woods, on another of his many comeback journeys that year, went T32 and T6, respectively, at those same events.

Langer is 1-for-11 in this odd comparison. In 2020, he had a T29 finish at the Masters and Woods, as the defending winner, had a T38 finish, when he famously made a 10 on the par-3 12th hole on Sunday.

Could it happen? Could Langer finish ahead of Woods in (for the sake of argument) a 72-hole, walking-only senior major, the senior events he would be most likely to play? Of course. Will it happen? It would be fun to see.

In the meantime, two quick images that tell you something about these two World Golf Hall of Famers.

When Woods won the 2019 Masters, there was a congo line of players waiting to high-five, fist-bump and bro-hug the winner on his way to the scoring room. Langer was the last person Woods saw before ducking into the clubhouse, scorecard in hand. They shook hands in a manner Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer would have recognized.

When Langer made a putt to win the 2024 PNC to secure a father-son win Tiger and Charlie Woods, as best I can tell, said this to Langer: “Bernhard? You’re the best. You’re the best, dude. Awesome.”

Well, that was Tiger at a glorified exhibition. A U.S. Senior Open is a whole different thing.

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com