AUGUSTA, Ga. (Reuters) – Double Masters champion Bernhard Langer is poised to make the halfway cut at the Masters at age 63 and supplant Gary Player as the oldest ever to qualify for the final two rounds.
After shooting 68 73, Langer posted a three-under-par 141 score on Friday that left him equal 27th with half the field yet to complete the round at Augusta National.
However, with the top 50 and ties making the cut, it is academic that he will advance.
Langer, the 1985 and 1993 Masters champion, will overtake South African Gary Player, who was 62 when he made the cut and finished 46th in 1998.
“Gary was my golfing idol,” Langer said on Friday. “He’s worked on his fitness and flexibility his whole life and it pays off.”
Langer has followed Player’s example and parlayed that discipline into a dominant second act of his career that has brought him 41 Champions Tour titles and made him its top money winner in six seasons between 2008 and 2014.
“I do stretching and I do workouts,” said the slender German, who said his performances at Augusta do not make him feel younger.
“Actually, it makes me feel older when I play with these young guys and I see how far they can hit it but I know this golf course and feel I know how to get it around.
“It’s a long hitter’s place. That’s why Jack (Nicklaus) won six times and Tiger (Woods) five times, because they were the longest hitters of their era.”
(Reporting by Andrew Both; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
