Bernhard Langer on Augusta National, the “Big Five,” & His Life in Golf

I'm Miss A Green for example, I'm already upset. When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when I find my ball in a Friday egg. Friday. The dreaded Friday. Friday. Friday. Friday. Friday. Friday. I'm about ready to run off the golf course course. Welcome back to the Friday golf podcast. I'm your host Andy Johnson. Today I am thrilled to be joined by one of golf's all-time legends Bernard Longer. Bernard won the Master's two times. Obviously has been one of the most prolific golfers had one of the greatest careers particularly when you consider the longevity in the history of the sport. So was really excited to chat with him ahead of this year's Masters about his career, his experiences at Augusta National. And you know, just a lot about his golf life. So could have done this for hours and hours. Really excited for you guys to have listened to this one. And thank you for listening. As a reminder, we will be out on Sunday with our preview for next week's Masters. I can't believe it's here. We have been hard at work in the lab the last few months. Again, Ray for this. I would urge you to go check out the Friday.com. We just posted a whole by whole of Augusta National. It's cool. We put some time and energy into the website design on this one. It kind of breaks down the history of each hole, the strategy of each hole, famous shots on each hole. It has a wonderful set of photos from present and past. That's at the Friday.com. Go check that out. That's kind of kicking off all of our coverage of the first major this year. So be sure to check that out. Before we get to Bernard, let's talk about our partner Mercedes Benz. Mercedes Benz offers a wide range of SUVs from compact to full size with up to three rows of seating, all with flowing lines and precise edges to balance elegance with aerodynamics. You can further customize your driving experience, whether it's a vast array of interior and exterior options or the hundreds of in-vehicle settings that can be personalized to fit your needs. Innovative MBUX AI learning capabilities can recognize your habits and driving preferences to create your unique driver profile. The Burmester 3D sound system creates an immersive acoustic experience with some models, including optional speakers right into the seat. Experience the power and precision and versatility of Mercedes Benz SUVs. You can visit mbusa.com/thudashmasters for more. That's mbusa.com/thudashmasters for more. Alright, let's get to Bernard longer. Alright, Bernard, I've got a big birthday coming up and I'm hoping that golf and relatively high level golf for my expectations are part of my life as I age. I got to ask you off the top, what are your keys to longevity of playing golf at an extraordinarily high level? Well, it's a lot of things. I always say it's like a puzzle. There's lots of pieces that have to fit together. I think I have pretty good genes. I think I have got given talent. Good work ethic. I've worked out all my life and joy working out. I enjoy practicing hitting balls and all of that and I enjoy competing. You need all of that and probably more to be successful because I say the Champions Tour is maybe the most competitive Tour there is. You may not agree but I tell you why because there's only 78 guys from the whole world who can play on this tour. 78 guys. There's no fallback. There's no other tour or nothing. The European Tour has a few senior events but it's not even comparable to the competition or the prize money or any of the other stuff. Everybody that can play golf very well over 50 will try and get on the Champions Tour and there's always young guys coming and some of the other guys have to leave. Like last couple of weeks ago we had Sack Johnson join us and Crane. Every other week every month there's a few new ones and it's difficult to hang out and be one of those 78. But I've been trying to immensely. I still play a pretty full schedule and just enjoy the camaraderie we have on this tour. As I said I work out and I practice a little less than I used to. My body can't take it. I can't hit 500-600 balls anymore. I would be hurting. So I spend more time recovering and more time stretching and trying to loosen up and be ready when the tournament starts. The thing about the Champions Tour too I imagine and I'm curious your perspective on this is that different players are at different points in their career where you have some guys that are coming out there that haven't had the huge accomplishments of others. Do you see a different level of competitiveness depending on obviously people's mental archetype but also what they've done in their career? Yeah they may be five or six guys out here that have had tremendous success when they were younger and they benefit from that. They may not be quite as competitive. But I would say three-fourths of the field or more are extremely competitive. They're hungry. They want to extend their career. Some of them may even need the money. I don't know. They need to perform. They need to finish in the top 36 to have a job next year. That's hard to do when you play against Hall of Famers and Major winners. Very accomplished players from all over the world. You just hit on that you worked out basically your whole career. When you were hitting the gym in the 80s, what percentage of the players your peers would you say were working out regularly and how do you think your fitness regimen has changed over the last 40 years? Yeah, great question. I think in the 80s there was maybe 30% of the guys who were working out seriously. Now I would say 95%. So it's changed dramatically. And I call that the Tiger Woods effect because when he came out and dominated, everybody was trying to find out why he's so good, why he's so long, why he's mentally so tough. Every percentage you can gain somewhere in your game may save a stroke and make you more successful. So that's when people really paid attention. I mean Gary Player showed us the way many years ago. You can see the benefit now. If you compare Gary Player to Check Nixless, Gary Player is still very mobile, very fit for his age. He's been a very young age. But the guy can still do all sorts of things like a 30 year old. It seems like while most 90 year olds they can hardly walk or shuffle along and just they're not flexible, they're not strong. So Gary Player was really to me. He was always my golfing idol and I think he said a great example that many of us are following now. With Gary Player being your idol growing up, what was it about his game that drew you to him? I obviously am in the Tiger era and I could go on about what I loved about Tiger growing up. But what about Gary Player for you growing up was the thing that drew you to him? Well, there were a number of things. First of all, when I met him, he was very kind to me and very helpful, but he was my size. He swung a little flatter than most people did in those years. He comes from a country where golf is not very popular and he had to really work hard to make it to Europe, to America, to the highest stage. head. to travel all over the place to get there with wife and kids in those days with a part-hide extremely difficult for him. So I just kind of identified with him a little bit and fitness was a part of it. I'm only 5-8 and he was about 5-8 or something like that. We're competing, trying to compete against these 6264 athletes who have a huge advantage just by size. But those were the main attractions. And now we're both believers in Jesus Christ and family people and other things. We're philanthropic. We realize how much we've been blessed and we get back and help those that are in need. With growing up in Germany, obviously not, particularly before you rose to the top of the golf world, not at all a golf hotbed. What was it like growing up in a place where golf was a very unpopular sport and becoming a golf icon and seeing the country's popularity grow? Yeah, I was very different. I remember when I was about 10 years old. We didn't even have 100 golf courses in Germany and there was a very leading kind of game. We had maybe, as I said, 80-90 golf clubs and they were all very private. So difficult to get into the game. On top of that, it was expensive and people had no idea what golf was. If you said, "Well, I'm a golfer." They said, "You're playing padd putt or a miniature golfer." Some like that. So it was not easy to break through. Give you a quick example. When I was 15, I finished my basic schooling of 9 years and went to the Institute of Job Placement. I had my two parents with me. I was 15. The guy across the desk was the so-called person who was going to advise me. So he asked me, "What do you want to do with your life, young man?" I said, "I want to be a golf professional." He looked at me like I'm from a different planet. He left the room and came back and said, "Actually, it's not a recognized profession." I highly recommend for you to learn some decent. That's what golf was like in Germany. Do you have any recommendations for you? Was there a job you recommended you do instead of being a golf pro? Well, he said, "Why don't you learn a proper trade and learn something and then in three or four years or five, whenever you've achieved that?" You still want to be a golf professional. Maybe you can do that. I said, "I don't want to waste three or five years." I had a job offer as an assistant pro and Munich. I somehow convinced my parents. I guess I was pretty stubborn. That's all I wanted to do. That was my dream. They drove me over there, got the interview and then got the job. Awesome. You know, it's been, been 44 years, really. Obviously, there's been two years in there that you didn't play the masters. How are you feeling about returning to Gustav National without playing for the first time in 44 years? I'll tell you in a couple of weeks, it's going to be bittersweet. I imagine it's going to be strange to go out near the Paddingerino, the first tee without the golf club and just be walking around knowing you never going to compete again in this wonderful tournament. But I knew sooner or later it would be time to call it quits. I didn't want to make a fool of myself out there. The course just got very, very long. I'm getting shorter. They moved the fairways from the green toward the tee box or the green or their fairways into you. The ball doesn't run as much as it does in other places. The greens are really designed to be hit with eight, nine, nine shorter to medium irons and I don't have any of those clubs anymore. They're around the gust. I'm hitting three woods and Iberts and the ball just doesn't stop. So I hit a perfect shot. It hits the green somewhere and bounces over and you don't want to be over those greens. No, but some bad spots over the greens. What would you say is the worst spot to be at Augusta National? If I placed a ball for you and you know this is the worst place you could possibly place a ball. Well, there's many of them. Depending on the pin position, you could pretty much choose one on every green. For instance, number 16, if you missed the green right and the pin is right, you have no chance. You're in the bunker or you're lucky to keep it on the green and it doesn't go on the water if you hit a good shot. It's like that 14. If the pin is left, you missed the green left. You're facing a chip that slopes away from you and you have no green and it goes 40, 50, 60 feet similar on nine. If you go along there, I've potted off the nine screen once. The pin was up front. It's a three-tier green. I was in the back. I hit it maybe three inches too hard, a four and it went 40 yards down the fairway. You make sure you look like a fool, but it's a fine line there. Why is it that we see more experienced players have such an advantage at Augusta National? For the very reasons, I just told you, you have to position your second shot. It often starts with a T-shirt. If you hit the T-shirt in the right part of the fairway, the right side or the left side, you have a better angle. I think Augusta was all designed about angles initially. Then they introduced semi-cut or I call it rough. The fairway is about half the size now than it used to be. They took some of the angles away, but angles are still important because you have a better angle in two of these screens. If you hit it perfectly or executed well, you can position it below the hole or at least level so you don't have too many downhill parts. That's the goal. It's really to me a second shot golf course or used to be. Now, it's pretty tight driving as well because of the introduction of planting 5,000 trees some years ago. Made it a lot tighter and then the inclusion of the rough, which also makes it harder to put spin on the ball. Those are the things that are extremely important and somebody has played the master's several times. The course understands that a nose will have to pin his hair. I can't go there. I got to play on this side of it or short of it or whatever it is to have a chance to make two pots to get up and down. Your first masters and your third appearance of the masters. What do you think you understood about Augusta earlier than most players? Well, I got a very harsh lesson the first time I played. I missed a cut by one. I had 11 three pots and they had the 10 shot rule. If I wouldn't have three potted in the first two rounds, I would have been tied for the lead. But I was 11 behind the leader and I missed the cut. So when I, as I look back at my two rounds, I'm going, this is crazy. You've never had 11 three pots in 36 holes. You've got to study these greens and figure out why this happened and how to avoid that in the future. That was the key when I paid much more attention to where to place my second shot. So I wouldn't three pot. I would hopefully one pot more than three pot. What's an example of a hole where positioning really matters at Augusta in your opinion? I would say every one of them, every single green. No, I'm not kidding. You take a simple hole like the third hole, the short part for you need to be left of the hole. So you have an output pot. And if the pin is on the left side of the green, four yards from the edge, it's hard to be left of the hole. Right? You have four yards to mess with with a nine iron or something coming in or wedge, whatever. So it's literally, you know, first green, you want to be short. You have an output pot. If you long, you have a download pot. Same on the second, 30 got to be left. Fourth, you got to be short and left. So it's on and on and on. Same on the sixth to pass three and the seventh. It's pretty much, I would say, 16 out of 18 greens where you have a huge advantage or disadvantage, depending on where you ball ends up with the iron shut. Yeah, I, you know, I was watching you last year play and I. You know, one of my favorite things to do is to go out and watch the more experienced players play Gusta because, you know, like at the length you're playing and as you describe the greens that aren't receptive, you have to play to the best spots in order to score. And it all, it amazed me on the second hole, you know, the pin was kind of kind of in the back left bowl of Sharia. And you played, you laid your ball up. So is the furthest right I've ever seen somebody lay the ball up and you kind of got jammed because the French held your approach shot up from funneling back in. But I just saw it was just an amazing mastery. Like as your power diminished, as the golf holes got longer, were there holes that you felt like changed the most for how you had to play them? Absolutely. When they introduced more lengths, you take the whole number seven, they, they lengthened it by 75 yards. It used to be in my prime, I would hit a one iron off the tee and a nine iron wedge. Now I'm hitting driver for sure and I got a five iron off a downhill lie into an uphill green that is 12 to 14 yards deep. And that's very punishing. That's another example. If you go long there, you have nothing. You got nothing. You know, you got to be short, maybe in the front bunker, you might have a chance get up and down. But if you're long, you pretty much have bogie written on the scorecard. Not the hole would be number five. They've lengthened that tremendously. That used to be a drive and eight iron. Now I'm hitting driver three wood just about every time the last year or two. And that's not a green to come in with a three wood. Just tough. It's similar 11. 11 is on the best day of four iron on the worst day last year. I had a driver driver one time and I got it to the front edge. And you have water left and also it's a trouble. So it's, it's that long. You know, some people even 17 and 18, it's often anywhere from a three wood on 18 to a three iron into the green and 17 is anywhere from a six iron to a two hybrid into greens that are meant for eight and nine. Obviously you you had the first best cut at the masters. You go on to win, you know, two masters later, three years later. You know, we've seen players that seem to have this charm to exist instead of gusting national over their course that are career. I would, I would place you in this bucket, you contended deep into your career where you had chances to win late in your career. You will obviously won two green jackets. While others, it becomes somewhat of a torture chamber for them in the sense of like everything goes wrong, you know, you think about the likes of Ernie L's and some of the bad beats he had. Roy McAroy until he won until he won last year, you know, people had described as this is, this is a horror, a horror, a place of horror for him. What, it obviously, you know, famously Greg Norman would would come to this come into this group. What about it creates that dynamic? We're certain players. It seems like everything goes right and other players that can just, you know, it just goes wrong for him. It's a wonderful question and I'm not sure I have the answer, but you mentioned some names, you know, Greg Norman, he was definitely one of the dominating players. He had the game and so does Ernie L's for that course. They hit the ball long, they hit it high, they can spin it. They got a wonderful touch around the short, the short game, you know, the potter. Both world number ones and at times in their career and had chances to win and specifically Greg Norman, you know, he blew several chances there and not sure why, you know, there's like you said, maybe it gets harder and harder, the longer you don't win, you know, the bad memories come back and haunt you and it's hard to stay focused. But as I said, at Augusta, the golf course, it's a very fine line of shooting 65 and maybe 75. You could play really good golf and shoot 75 and you look back and go, man, I played great golf. What happened, you know, just you were a foot off here, a couple inches there. You made a bad judgment here or something. It takes very, very little. It's just that fine of a line around those screens. And then, you know, you have breaks like you remember Fred Couples when he won, you know, when the ball stayed up on 12. I mean, that ball goes in the water 99 out of 100, actually 100 out of 100, but his didn't and he made power and he won the tournament. With that rolls back in the water, he makes probably double or something and, you know, mentally that's hard to digest who knows what would have happened. But you need a good break here and there to win. I had a wonderful break in 85 when I went for the green on 13 with a three wooden of a bad line the fairway and it never got higher. My three would never got higher than two or three feet off the ground. And it's head and toward race Creek and it hit little bump there, a little hill, just shorter race Creek bounced over the creek onto the green and I made about a 40 footer or some for eagle. And if that ball doesn't hit that hill, I might make par or bogey or something and the whole thing would have turned out differently. When you reflect on your career, I mean, what you just hit on is one of the crazy things about the, you know, there are a lot of crazy things about the, you know, the, you know, there are a lot of crazy things about the profession of playing competitive golf for a living. One thing that, you know, as someone who watches Weekend Week out that is illuminating to me the more, more I watch is the idea of how like random bounces often dictate tournaments. And you're, you get yourself in contention and it's a break here or break there at the right time that seem to do it. As a player, has that gotten easier to kind of come to grips with when you fall short as you've gotten older or, or does it drive you as crazy as it did at a younger age? Well, it always drives you crazy when you get a bad break, you know, you hit a beautiful seven iron hit the flag stick and it bounces off and goes in the water and you make double bogey. It had missed a flag, probably might have made birdie, some like that. But I think you learn as you get older that you're going to get good breaks and bad breaks and hopefully they'll even out somewhere down the road. And so you, you just have to take it. There's no other way, you know, it's the game of golf. You can, you can hit a tree and sometimes it, it bounces away and goes out of bounds. It's time it bounces in and ends up near the greener on the fairway. It's out of our control. And as I said, it'll probably even out over your career. That's the way I try and look at it as it evens out. Is there one terrible break that you got in your career that still you still think about today? Oh, there were several. I remember one time playing at the Bellfree and a regular tournament in England and I hit the flag pole three times with a full shot with a six iron or a white shirt and none of the three stayed on the green, not even on the green. They all came off in the same round. Sorry. In the same round or the same tournament? No, in the four rounds in the tournament. But you don't hit the flag pole three times with a full iron usually, you know, that might happen once. So that was kind of weird. A few years back, not too long. 13 again, the five round the corner. I hit a beautiful tee shot and I had a two hybrid and I struck it beautiful. I mean, when you're pro, you just know when you hit in the sweet spot and it started online and it took off fantastic and about as it was 50 yards in the air. It hit this tiny little twig that overhang in tree and the branch came down and had a tight that the very end of the branch, the twig was no more than a quarter of an inch or half an inch. The ball clipped that twig and it went 40 yards left in the trees and a lost ball. If it had a mid-seven, if it hadn't hit that twig, it would have been on the green and I would have potted for eagle, probably made birdie. You know, those are the breaks that drive you crazy when you hit a really beautiful, solid shot and that happens when you hit a bad shot while you deserve to get a bad break. In 1985, Curtis Strage, Fabulous Lee spoke, you know, this is the year you won about how everything kind of changes and how everything changed for him when he got on the 10th tee on Sunday at Augusta. How would you describe the feeling of entering that back nine with a chance? to win. Yeah, it's an amazing feeling knowing that, you know, you got nine holes left, you got to play your best golf to maybe win a major when the masters get a green check and have a lifetime exemption. There's so much on the line. At the same time, when you have the lead like Curtis did, you know, there's it's the same thing. You try to protect that lead to some extent, but it's a golf course where it's hard to protect anything because if you start playing safe, you end up in the wrong places at times and get punished quickly. It's just the back nine at Augustus probably as exciting a nine holes as you'll ever see on any golf course. You have water, you have tough, tough greens, you have two puffs, that are possible, eagle chances, but also you way, you can make a seven, just the same. And just very exciting finishing holes where a lot can happen. You know, I remember walking off 17 at 85 and I just buried 17. I looked up at the leaderboard and I had a two shot lead over Sevy and Curtis Stranges. I think mostly Curtis, maybe three over Sevy and Raymond Floyd. And Sevy, as we walked to the 18th screen, he puts his arm around my shoulder and goes burnout well done. Congrats. This is yours. Go get it. You know, and I'm looking at him and saying, you know, thanks, but I got one of the hardest potholes in the world to play. I mean, that T-shirt coming out of that shoot, you know, anything can happen there. And I didn't want to do it. I think it was Arna Palmer who lost it once on that hole. And so I appreciate it as kind gesture, but I still had a tough hole ahead of me. You know, so 85 you come back. Obviously Curtis struggles on the back line. You come out of the pack. Like a real, it's actually a really great masters to watch, rewatch on their YouTube channel. You know, there's a heap of great world class players that you come out and you win your first masters in 93. You're playing with the lead. You kind of touched on this, but what's the difference in the dynamic of playing with like a somewhat substantial, a comfortable lead at Augusta National versus other golf courses? And I'm curious and you're in your career, have there been a corollary courses that have a similar feel to Augusta in the sense of like that kind of razor thin edge of a golf course? Well, I'm sure there is other courses that are somewhat similar, but we see it year after year at Augusta where, you know, somebody goes 500 on the back nine or four or six under who knows? And it's easy to go a couple over as well. And so the swing changes, or the lead changes can happen in span of a few minutes. I had a four shot lead on starting that Sunday and most people would say, "Well, four shot is a lot, you know, that's going to be hard to catch." Well, Greg Norman lost with a six to seven shot lead by a lot and I almost got caught. My four shot lead went down to one with nine to go and I really had to get a grip of myself and play aggressive and good golf on the back nine to not let this be taken away from you. You've been a prolific winner in your career, to say the least, you know, your whole career. What are your strategies for playing with lead? Like, what are you trying to do in your mind? Do it, you know, because we see, I feel like we see so many people struggle playing with lead on Sunday. Like, what did have you learned over the course of your career of closing out a tournament? Yeah, it's never easy to tell you the truth, but I think the more you put yourself in that situation, the easier it gets. And I think that was one of Tiger's big advantages because he was in contention just about every week he teed it up and it becomes normal and natural while somebody who's only in the lead once a year or twice, it's a lot harder. But I give you an example. I was 19. I was leading the Irish open by two with nine holes to go and I hit a beautiful t-shirt on 10 and I'm walking toward my ball and I'm thinking, well, what are you going to do with all that money you're going to win? And then what are you going to say at price giving? I've never given a public speech. I'm 18 years or 19 years old and thoughts like that. And that's the worst you can think. But I was just inexperienced and sure enough, about four holes later, I wasn't leading anymore and I didn't win the tournament. So what you do, well, it's that phrase, one shot at a time and it sounds so simple and so boring, but that's what it is. You got to stay in the presence. You can't let the circumstances overwhelm you. You got to try and block out all that stuff and just focus on the next shot and the next shot. And you still got to play aggressive most of the time. You may be able, if you have a big lead to play kind of saved the last few holes, but if you don't have a big lead, it doesn't work. So you still got to hit the shots, you got to make the pots and stay in the presence. Don't get ahead of yourself. I think that staying in the present is one of the most challenging things to do on a golf course. It is it sounds so simple to stay in the present. But it is because we have so much time, right? You walk to the ball. You got a couple minutes. You know, what is your brain is always sinking something. It's never just dull. And in other sports tennis or other sports, they're reactionary sport. We don't react. We have to act. And the ball is just sitting there waiting for you to be hit. It's yeah, it's a different dynamic and not easy. What's your favorite way when you when you feel yourself thinking ahead to get yourself back? Yeah, when I see my mind go where you shouldn't go, then I'll just kind of have a self talk and say, hey, this is this is not good, you know, come come back here and let's focus on what's at hand. You got whatever eight holes to go. You know, I have my own little game here. Let's if I shoot 200 the next eight holes or something, nobody can catch me. If I'm three ahead or something or four ahead. So it's trying to stay with a similar game plan that got you there because obviously it was good. Otherwise, you wouldn't be in the lead. So don't change things dramatically. If you have a lead, you don't need to take a huge chances. You know, if the the pin is four steps from the water waters on the left, you're not going to go at that pin with a forearm. You just try and hit the middle of the green and you force the chasers, the other people to take the risk and maybe make mistakes. You have, you know, the the possibility to play safe on a couple of holes, but then when you have a chance with a pitching wedge or or some other clubs where you feel comfortable and you can go straight at it and hopefully make birdie and put more pressure on the other guys. That that idea of challenges, like you said, like, you know, if I play the next eight holes two under, do you think about that kind of stuff throughout a 54 or 72 hole tournament? Not really. Usually not. It's more so. Let's say I get off to a bad start and I'm two over four six or eight holes and I might just at some point say, okay, let's stop here. You got the ten holes left. Let's see if we can shoot the next ten holes two or three under and bring the score back to a respectable, respectable result. So I'm trying to forget the past and focus on my next ten holes thinking something positive and that has worked very well in my career. Let's take a quick break to talk about our partners. In springtime, the masters I feel like for all Midwestern and East Coast dwellers is like the kickoff to golf season. This one you're starting, you know, you get those cold mornings. Maybe it's 30 degrees out, but it warms up to 55. You're thinking about golf. This is a time to upgrade your game and there's no better place to do it than golf galaxy. Get dialed for the latest clubs up and down the bag at golf galaxy. It's easy and convenient with an in-app booking, you know, capabilities or just stop by your local store to schedule. Bring in your full bag of clubs, their team of thoroughly trained fitters will optimize every club in your bag to get you playing your best golf. Visit your local golf galaxy and download the golf galaxy mobile app. Speaking of getting your game dialed, um, one way. way to get your game dialed is by getting the right yardages. Just yesterday I was playing with a pro golfer who showed interest in this range fighter, cobalt, the cobalt QZ6 range fighter. It's got this optical zoom, it's unbelievable. So you can go 6x to 12x zoom. You can see balls like you're playing a little money game and you are wondering, hey, who's got prox? Who's got prox? This thing can help you see who's got prox. It can help you decide, hey, do I need to take on this pin a little bit more? Even though some people say never take on a pin. But hey, if you've got a couple of presses going a roll, you might want to play a little bit more aggressively. It makes it easier to clearly see the pin, read the background and pick out targets. I can attest to this just from my round yesterday. A couple of times I had some branches and I was able to use the zoom to like miss the branches. You know how you get that sometimes where you're shooting but you're like, oh, this little branches in the way with the zoom, you can get closer so you're able to really shoot the pin. It includes slope. It's got a really easy way to turn it on and off so you don't have a mishaps. And it's got really clear optics and it's a durable build designed for consistent and reliable yardages. It's backed by lifetime warranty and sold direct to consumer, no retail markup. So use the promo code Fried Egg Pod 15 for 15% off at cobalt-golf.com. And that's good through April 30th. That's cobalt-golf.com. And the promo code is Fried Egg Pod 15. All right. Thanks. Let's get back to Bernhard Longer. Back to 85. You were paired with Sevy in the final round. It was obviously a player that you had you'd bet around a lot on the European tour growing up, playing, you know, golf. Do you think that pairings help in those high pressure situations? I think they do. I think there's some people that you feel more comfortable or you're rather with than some others. I'm not sure I was overly comfortable with Sevy because we had a big rivalry in Europe. It was for a number of years like Mikkelsen and Tiger. If you know what I mean. And you know, we played for the same titles and there can only be one winner. And nobody likes finishing second. So we kind of had that relationship for a number of years. But at the same time, we played on the same right-of-cup team many times representing Europe playing against the Americans. And that reminds me what Sevy said on the first tee. So we got introduced and we hit our t-shirts on number one on Sunday in 1993. And we walk off and he comes near me and walks next to me and says, "Burnhard, let's make sure one of us wins this tournament and not these American Yankees behind us." You know, that was his. He just wanted to be the Americans. That was his big goal. He just had that in his heart somehow. He wanted to win the right-of-cup and he wanted to beat the American. I don't know if that goes back to the Americans receiving appearance fees when they came to Europe. And he didn't for a while and he felt that was wrong because he was as good as them, maybe better. So there was a chip on his shoulder in that regard. I wanted to talk about that group of players. I think I've seen it referred to as the famous five, yourself, Ian Wusedom, Sandy Lyle, Sevy, Nick Faldow. What do you think made that group tick and why did golf and just that era work for everybody? Yeah, I think they did a wonderful job. I think you can watch it on YouTube called The Big Five. And they went to our hometowns. They interviewed people that helped us grow and how we got into the game and why we became so good. My view is we all have different backgrounds. You know, Sandy Lyle lived on a golf course. He grew up. His dad was the golf teacher, golf professional in the club. It was easy for him. He just stepped out of his front door and he was on the course. For some of us, it wasn't that easy for Wusedom and myself and even Sevy. We had no access to to golf courses. We didn't have the money to be a member anyway. We couldn't afford lessons. We were more self-taught and very hungry and eager to play this game the hard way. But we all made it to the top. All of us and fascinating stories. I think what really helped us was we're all the same age. We're all born within 12 months of each other, all five of us. So we competed at the very highest level for about 15, 20 years against each other. That made us better. When I competed against Sevy and Faldo and Wusedom and Lyle and I saw Sevy win majors. He's won majors. I beat him several times. Why am I not winning majors? That kind of attitude really pushed us and helped us to work harder and get better and believe in ourselves. Do you have a favorite European tour memory from that era? There's so many. We don't have the time. But in the early days, it was very different. I got on tour when I was 18. There were no courtesy cars. No, the range balls were so bad. When you hit a five, I earned a ball with hooking, slicing, straightening out and slicing again. You didn't know what Zadjua was at the ball. So we all had checkbacks of maybe 50 titleists with us. We traveled with them. And then you had 20 caddies on the range picking up your own range balls because I didn't want to lose my 50 titleists. I didn't have any for the next day to practice. So that was very dangerous for those caddies and hilarious times to see how they dodged the balls and ran around. It was crazy, really. On the other hand, as I said, I was 18. I couldn't rent a car until I was 23. How do I get? Nobody cared about us really. So I flew to Madrid and I'm stuck at the airport. How do I get to the golf course? I had to take a bus or train with my suitcase, my check bag, my golf clubs, all that stuff that I had because I couldn't rent a car. I didn't have a car. And then how do I get back and forth every day? You know, it's things like, I mean, you can take a taxi, but I couldn't afford a taxi. I didn't have the money to do that. It was very complicated, very difficult. One time I was in England, I was looking for the golf course and it was a weird name and I couldn't say it properly. And I asked three people and they didn't understand me. Okay, they said, no, this place is nowhere near. So I finally wrote it down. I showed it. Oh, yeah, that's right around the corner. It's just a lack of pronouncing the word correctly, things like that, but it goes on and on. With your peers of that era, if you could have, if you could have taken one aspect of one of their games for yourself, what would it have been? Well, I kind of struggled early on with putting in my life. So I always thought if I could become a better partner, I would be a really good player. And so I was always chasing how to be a better partner or how to have a better short game. Like in my third tournament, I finished tight fifths in the Madrid open. And I could see with the people I played against that, my ball striking was as good or superior to theirs, but my short game wasn't quite there. So you know, Savvy was just the opposite at times. He was brilliant with a potter and the wedges. So I tried to become better in that part of the game. And I knew if I could, that would be one of the best. You've referenced the difficulty of lack of means, lack of resources when you were coming up in the sport in Germany. You know, lack of golf courses, very private access. How did you become such a elite ball striker with seemingly not a lot of of golf infrastructure around you. What made you such a great tea-degree player? Well, I was self-taught the first six years of my caddy life. Let's put it that way. I couldn't afford lessons and nobody was really offering lessons. And then when I became assistant pro at age 15, my head coach said, "You know, I can help you with your technique if you want me to." And I was all ears. Obviously, I wanted to become better. I had a very strong grip. I learned as a nine-year-old, if you hook the ball, it goes further than a slice. So I tried to hook everything to get more distance to reach the par four and two instead of in three and stuff like that. But that, I had to pay a price for that because later when I first got on tour and I was drawing the ball, that low draw didn't really work too well on firm fast greens in Spain and Portugal and other places. So I had to redo my grip, redo my whole swing to get the ball up in the air and had to learn to hit a fade. All that was a long process. And I ran into a German coach by the name of Willie Hoffman. He became my coach for 40 years. From age 18 to about age 58 or 60 and he was very knowledgeable. He worked over here in America for the golf dite to school with Jim Flick and Bill Straßbo, some of the very well-known teachers of the game. And he knew a lot. So he helped me greatly and he's once said, "I'm not going to change your swing grip drastically like some other people wanted to or so. All I need to is that we're going to change it a tiny bit every year and in a few years you'll look at your grip and you'll be amazed how good it looks." And that's what we did and he said, "The reason we're doing it this way is that you're DNA and I want you to be competitive throughout your whole career. I want you to be in contention all the time so we're not making drastic changes." Then he said, "In the 70s we were taught to have the reverse C finish like a Johnny Miller or a Technicler or whatever and he said, "You know, now in your 20s if you keep swinging like that your back's going to kill you later in your life. I don't want you there. I want you to play well in your 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s. And initially I was thinking, "Why don't you really care? I don't know. I want to be the best. I can be right now. But it made sense. So we changed my swing a little bit by a little bit to cover the ball more which is what they do nowadays. The modern equipment everybody seems to cover the ball and clear through the shot totally different than in the old days. So he had that knowledge and foresight and wisdom to guide me down that path and it worked very well for me. As you said, I was competitive throughout my all my 50 years on tour pretty much. The only thing that held me back at times was my putting but my ball striking was generally pretty good throughout my whole career." With the putting, obviously you went through a lot trying to different styles of putting to figure out the struggles there. When you look back, do you think that that had in the long term a positive impact on your career in terms of when you look at your longevity? Not sure. I don't think so, but maybe it does. I wish I wouldn't have had to go through some of the struggles. But I think you learn more in the bad times, but I still would have had bad times, low times. The middle name of golf is frustrating or humbling, whatever you want to call it. So you never or very seldom do you play at your highest level. There's no perfect round the golf because that would be a score of 36. We can reach every hole in two. If you hold out every hole, you would have a 36. The lowest score I've ever heard of was what? 58. So we're far away from perfection and nobody will ever achieve it. With going back to your group of Europeans, I had a huge impact on so many things, one of which being the Ryder Cup. What do you think made your late 80s, early 90s teams so successful? Beyond just this year talent? Well, I think first of all, it was to hunger because the Americans were so much better supposedly, according to the media and everybody else. And they did beat us over and over in the 50s, 60s, 70s. And the other thing, the phenomenon was the big five. We had initially the Ryder Cup was great Britain and Ireland against America. Then Czechnicloss after drumming the European team over and over and over, he said, you should consider including the continent, all of Europe because they're really not competitive. They have no chance. He said it nicer than that, but that's what he meant. And so they agreed. Yeah, let's include all of Europe and all of a sudden we became more competitive. You had players from Spain, from Italy, Sweden, France, Holland, Germany, all over the place. And now you got the big five, which really made a huge impact on the Ryder Cup. We were not scared of anybody. It didn't matter if you played against Niklas or Trevino or Floyd or you name it. We had confidence. We were winning tournaments. We winning around the world. All of us won majors. And therefore we felt we were as good as them and that we could beat him. The other thing is I think there were times when we only had three or four good players. I think in the 80s we started to have 12, 15 good players. And that's changed dramatically now. I think the European tour could could field almost two Ryder Cup teams. That's how deep the tour has gotten, how big the game has grown. And we didn't have that in the early year. Suddenly not when it was great Britain and Ireland. In the course of your career, was there a moment where a player in their skills made you kind of stop in your tracks and watch with the first time you saw him hit a ball? Yeah, there were some of them. Obviously they all had you know, a semi-short game was phenomenal. You had foul goes. Real quick with semi-short game. As most people here probably didn't ever watch Sevy and they're listening watch Sevy and their prime, what about his short game was so magical? Well, they should go back and watch some movies. It's worth watching. Well, yeah, he could go in a bunker with you. And he'll go in with a three iron and beat you out of the bunker out of a greenside bunker with a lip. He'll get it closer to the hold and most of us with a sandwich or a lot of which he was just that good. That was one thing. He could play the flop shot. He could skip and run it. He had the imaginative imagination and a touch and same with a potter, you know, he would hit his t-shirt somewhere in the ruff or in the trees and you saw it while I got him now and then he'll by the end of this hole, you look at the score and he tied you or he beat you by one and you go, how did that happen? You know, Tom Lehman tells the story. He played him in the right cup. I think he was at Rodchester. He never saw him the first nine holes. Sevy was left or right and Tom was down the middle, played very solid. After nine holes, they were even. I mean, it was just he said it was unbelievable. The guy never saw until he hold out on the hole kind of thing and yet I wasn't up on the guy. So that was Sevy's special. Obviously he could play very good from T-Degrean as well at times. Extremely good. He had that one iron that could go straight up in the air. Actually, the greatest shot I've ever seen in my life and I've seen a lot of great shots. Would have been Sevy hitting a three wood out of a out of a fairway bunker at PTA National when we played the 83 right cup. He drove on 18. He drove it in the bunker. I was already finished. I walked back to support my team and I was walking back on 18. I see Sevy in the bunker and his opponent on the fairway and I'm going, oh, this is no good, you know, he's going to lose this almost lightly and I'm looking at his line, this bunker and I'm standing, I'm thinking, well, if this was me, I would probably hit a seven or eight iron. because there was a lip and laid up and then hopefully wedged and you know make make birdie it's a part five. What's that he goes in that takes a three wood a persimmon three wood with a steel shaft. He aims out in the water which is water all the way down the right side of those of you know PJ national the last hole. He hits this high draw here is it about 240 with this persimmon steel shaft that three wood. Why is it on to the green and wins the whole and my eyes got so big I didn't have that shot I will as I said I was scared to seven iron or six iron with the lip there was and he took three wood. So though you know different players have different talents and different gifts Sandy Lyle was the same he could hit a one iron so far and so high it was scary. I mean ridiculous but he had this amazing power in his swing and and was he you know was he was his five four at his prime and when he won his master she flew that 18's T shot he flew it over the bunker. That's that's enormous distance and then he had a wedge in there so there's some stuff that is just exceptional and that's why these guys were the best at the time. What's been the most fulfilling moment in your golf career. Oh that's a that's a tough one because I've been blessed with over 130 victories worldwide and. You know obviously the masters jumps to mind immediately but then even winning my first German open my first German masters my you know 11 majors out here on the senior tour or 11 money titles things like that it's a player of the year there there were so many amazing things that when I look back i'm almost have to pinch myself and say well this is. This is crazy you know that all this happened to you there's so many great players and so much talent and and gifted guys out there you know how were you able to win these championships so i'm very fortunate very blessed and it's hard to just pick one. You know even things like getting the pains to a trophy very emotional or being inducted into the hall of fame a golf coming from a village of 800 people in the area where golf was nothing it's crazy you know it's just really incredible and i'm very very grateful for. Well thank you so much for joining the show giving us some of your time and it was real pleasure to speak with you and look forward to see you at the at the masters millen about. We'll be sure to stop by and say hi thanks Andy enjoyed it all the best God bless. Alright big thanks for listening to another edition of the Friday golf podcast as a reminder we will be back on Sunday Sunday it'll be in your feet to get you kind of rolling for the masters week i can't believe we're here very excited for this year and thank you for coming along with us.