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Dave Wilson
Augusta, Ga. – Bernhard Langer took a trip through Amen Corner to find religion.
In 1985, the German won his first green jacket in Augusta National, using Jesus’ name in vain in an interview of his champions in Butler Cabin, then a few days later he had a biblical study at Hilton Head, South Carolina. In 1993 he won his second masters on Easter Sunday in the mother’s church of American golf.
“This tournament was more meaningful for me than most people know, even in a spiritual sense,” Langer, 67, said on Friday.
He spoke in the past tense because Bogey left him on the wrong side of the cut line in his 41. – and the final – masters as a member of the field.
When Langer left from 18. Green Friday, the end of one of the most turbulent career in the history of Masters. His first victory came when the 27 -year -old 800 people became only the third international champion after South African player Gary and the Spanish Seve Ballesteros, followed by the second green jacket eight years later in 1993.
Langer’s longevity survived the revolution of golf equipment: Langer is the last player to win the main game with the driver Tomel.
John gave the PGA championship in the Crooked Stick in 1991, when he grabbed and torn it with the Kevlar-Headed Cobra driver, and Jose Maria Olazabal won the 1994 Masters with (relatively) huge metal driver TaylorMade in the bag.
The paintings of Langer’s past glory inspired nostalgia. As part of Langer’s farewell to Augusta, Champions tour, where Langer dominated since the turn of 50, he published a video of Langer, who first performed a driver who won 32 years ago, Texan, Texas Golf Co. Langer showed in his collection, which was inspired by victory.
The last player who won Augusta with the driver Tomel.
Bernhard Langer shows a driver from Masters 1993. pic.twitter.com/8aijfqnzvy
– PGA Tour Champions (@Championsour) 9. April 2025
“They gave me a unique gift,” Langer said. “Their owner painted it for me. He’s one of their drivers and it represents the” last dinner “, so it is Jesus with 12 disciples. Hand -carved. A very unique piece. ”
Almost 2,000 miles away in Mexico Jalisco, Dave Wood was impressed.
Wood is a little Renaissance man. He grew up in Hollywood, California, the son of a golf professional and teacher, and went to the California Institute of Art, one of the most prestigious programs of visual art in the country. He was admitted to the University of Houston to play golf, but stopped after one year and instead graduated to Glassell School of Art in Houston. He was still an excellent golfer and began to merge all his interests by experimenting with club design. Soon he found mentors in the legends of Jackie Burke and Jimmy Demaret, two Texans who both won the Masters.
The result was a new company: The Texas Golf Co. and his innovative Texan driver.
“I was the first company to place the attic clubs,” Wood said. “Every club you will see today at the store had it today.”
Wood met Langer in Riviera Country Club in 1984 and hit him. As a competitive player, Wood himself was one of the only representatives of the facility to talk about the language of the players. At that time, there were no starting monitors, so Wood found that it was easiest to dial in his product by gaining feedback from his friends, stars like SEV Ballesteros and Greg Norman. Before Bryson Brazhambeau Robots, who helped him look for a micron level of accuracy, Wood was hard at the tip.
And he said that Langer’s test methods were most regimen.
“Bernhard sent his Caddy to the end of the range and had a signal program,” Wood said. “I mean really good German engineering. If the ball landed and then jumped left and released, he would have a hand signal back to Bernhard to let him know what was going on.”
Soon afterwards, both their careers took off.
Demaret and Burke started sending players to see Wood. Soon Phil Micelson and Ben Crenshaw began to produce clubs, including Texan, who used Micelson as an amateur to win his first PGA Tour, Tucson Open in 1991.
In 1993, Wood was in Augusta since Sunday on Sunday, but then had to fly to Japan. While there, at midnight, watched his friend won the Masters with the club he built.
“If it failed, I’d break the Japanese TV file,” Wood said.
He wanted to do something – for himself and Langer – to represent what success meant. He knew Langer was a devoted Christian; He knew he was always watching his tongue around German. So he decided to create a Texan with a carving of the “last dinner” in it.
“Leonardo da Vinci has always been one of my inspirations,” Wood said. “After Bernhard won in Augusta, that was the goal for me. I couldn’t have a bigger challenge.”
He worked on a special driver for six months, found out how to deal with the “view” of the grain of Tomel, and how to do the engraving that followed the complex curves of the driver’s head. When the piece was finally completed, he couldn’t wait for Langer. He even forgot to take any photos of his creation.
So when Wood got a text from an old friend in a Golf business with a video with Langer this week, he couldn’t believe Langer had stressed the gift. He brought back three decades of memories, golf life, and now the end of the era with an old friend who took his last loop around the track.
“It looked like I remembered it,” Wood said of his home in Mexico. “It was exciting that he was still important to him, of all the trophies – he’s one of the giants – that he won that he was spending time with it.”
Wood watched on Friday when Langer wore green pants as a tribute to his 1983 victory. Fans gave him ovation all over the golf course. Wood watched as he asked at 12. And he even pulled out, as if Amen Corner rescued him again. Langer saved with a double bogey to 15 and other bogey at 18.
“The acceptance of 18 was a mixed emotion because I was still inside the cut line, and when I made bogey, I wasn’t sure I was completely out of there or not because I actually thought that a 3-over would cut,” Langer said.
But he just missed one shot, after Putt disappeared from the fall.
Knowing when to leave is particularly difficult in golf. Langer is the best-known player in the history of PGA Tour champions and crushes the 50-somethings deep to his 60s. But on the right day and on the right journey, he can still beat competitors half of his age. (Or less. Only moments after Langer ended up on 3-over, 28-year-old Will Zloitoris tapped to complete the second round in 8-over.) The end may be delayed for a long time. For the great ones, it is decisions when to leave, it is a matter of faith.
Langer remained in incredible condition despite Achilles’ injuries last year. And he was this close become the oldest player who has ever made a cut. Sam Snead made a cut to the 1979 PGA championship, also at the age of 67. But Langer said he didn’t just want to get for the weekend.
“I want to be in heat,” Langer said. “I want to be on the ranking. I want to have a chance to win. On this golf course I no longer feel I can win.”
Langer’s partner, amateur Noah Kent, average 322.6 yards from the tees on Thursday and Friday. Langer, on the other hand, dialed 253.3 yards per unit. Not exactly the field position.
“These Greens hit such long clubs where I can’t stop the ball where I have to stop it,” Langer said. “It’s a golf course designed to be hit by middle to short irons. The Greens are so serious.”
In order to compete, Langer had to miss all the right places and get up and down again and again, using all the lessons he learned in the 41 years of the Alister Mackenzie championship. But he managed to do it well. In fact, when he played his bikes, he asked if he decided to decide next year, that he would decide not to return. But now, he says, he’s calm.
Came out of 18. Greens with his son Jason on a bag to greeted his wife, his four children and two of his grandchildren. “The last two days, when I walked after the navigation pathway, there were many emotions,” he said. “Friends from all over the world, literally, a few holes went with me. It meant a lot.” He could have an old friend in Mexico. Wood’s “last dinner” Homage to Langer was also his own proverbial last dinner.
“This was the last golf club Tosimmon, which I personally made,” Wood said. “I didn’t know that at the time. But this is life.”
Wood watched every Langer shot on Friday and said he couldn’t remember that he was more invested in the golf round.
“That’s it,” Wood said. “The end of our era.”
Masters announced Jim Nantz, who called the tournament since 1989, called Langer “one of the big players in the history of this tournament”.
But Langer thought that the legacy alone after four decades in his final performance in the press center. “How will they remember me? Hopefully you know like a good golfer. But hopefully a man of faith.”
