SAMMAMISH, WASH. - Bernhard Langer will bring a two-major winning streak to Blaine this week as he tries to repeat at the 3M Championship. Langer completed a trans-Atlantic double Sunday, shooting a final round 3-under 67 and winning the U.S. Senior Open.
Coming off a victory at the Senior British Open last week at Carnoustie, Langer finished at 8 under for the tournament, even as he fought jet lag.
"It's hard to believe I won two back-to-back majors with an 8-hour time change in between and two very challenging golf courses," Langer said. "I probably played some of my best golf these last two weeks."
He also dealt with a partisan hometown crowd that was hoping Fred Couples could pull out victory only 20 miles east of where he grew up.
Just like a dozen years ago when the PGA Championship was played at Sahalee Country Club, it wasn't to be for Couples.
Tied with Langer starting the day, Couples birdied the opening hole before his undoing on No. 2, a par-5 and the easiest hole on the course. Couples plopped his third shot into a greenside pond, and when he walked off with a triple bogey, he was in chase mode.
Langer didn't let him catch up, even with the crowd rooting against him.
"It's never much fun, but I've had it before," Langer said. "When you play in the same group with Tiger Woods or Jack Nicklaus or Arnold Palmer or any of the big names in America, certainly the Ryder Cups -- I've played 10 Ryder Cups, five on American soil -- you get a lot more of this," Langer said. "So I knew what was coming, which doesn't make it any easier."
Couples, who hasn't entered the 3M Championship, finished three shots back with an even-par 70.
At the 1998 PGA Championship at Sahalee, Couples stumbled through the first round and finished tied for 13th. This time, he put himself in prime position for his first major title on the Champions Tour taking the lead with a birdie at No. 1 Sunday.
Then came the second, and gone was any realistic chance of Couples winning the tournament.
It was the easiest hole on the course all week, a par 5 at 503 yards. For the first time, Couples laid up with his second after pushing his tee shot right and deciding not to chance a hybrid from the first cut of rough. The layup left him about 65 yards to the pin for his third.
The next two sounds left Couples in shock: chunk and plop.
"It was a pretty easy shot," Couples said.
His pitch landed in a greenside pond, well short of the green. The transgression was magnified when Couples hit his fifth shot over the green, then needed two putts to walk away with a triple bogey.
Suddenly a one-shot lead for Couples became a three-shot deficit. And Langer never opened the door to give Couples hope of rallying.
"When I birdied the first hole, that was what I thought I needed to get going," Couples said. "And then about 12 minutes later I was looking for a hole to crawl in."
Langer's counterpunches started at the third. He snaked a long birdie putt at No. 3 after Couples hit his second shot close and added another birdie at the sixth, a 480-yard converted par 5. Langer also made par saves at Nos. 8, 9.
Langer became the first Champions Tour player to win back-to-back majors since Tom Watson took the Senior British and JELD-WEN Tradition.
"It's hard to believe I won two back to back majors with an 8-hour time change in between and two very challenging golf courses," Langer said. "I probably played some of my best golf these last two weeks."
