AUGUSTA – When Bernhard Langer returns next year to play in the 2025 Masters, the door to 1980 champions will close behind him.
The 66-year-old German previously announced in January that 2024 would be his last competitive appearance at Augusta National. Then he tore his Achilles tendon in February and had to withdraw from this year’s field.
But he plans to come back in 2025.
“I plan to play next year,” Langer told the Augusta Chronicle this week. “That’ll be my last.”
That will close the book on Masters champions who won here in the 1980s. Langer won in 1985 and again in 1993.
Larry Mize (1987) and Sandy Lyle (’88) played their last competitive rounds last year. Two-time champion Seve Ballesteros (1980, ‘83) stopped playing in 2007 and died in 2011. Tom Watson (’81), Craig Stadler (’82), Ben Crenshaw (’84), Jack Nicklaus (’86) and Nick Faldo (’89) all withdrew from competitive play a while ago.
Masters victories all come with a lifetime exemption. Augusta National considered enacting a 65-year-old age limit – known as the Doug Ford rule – but it has never been strictly enforced. Ford, the 1957 champion, last made a cut at age 48 in 1971. But he played for another 30 years, missing the cut 21 cuts times and withdrawing nine others.
Basically, it’s left up to the players. They tend to decline the invitation when they’re no longer competitive. They still return for the champions dinner, Par 3 and other events.
Arnold Palmer played in the most Masters with 50. His last was 2004.
As for the 1990s, ‘92 champ Fred Couples, Jose Maria Olazabal and Tiger Woods are still competing. They might be a while.
Paying homage
When he makes his first Masters appearance, Denny McCarthy will have a rubber duck on his golf bag and a yellow duck on the insoles of one of his custom-made Payntr golf shoes. It’s all to honor the memory of 16-year-old family friend Madison Smith, who died of cancer in October.
“Just something to remember her,” McCarthy said. “The way she handled herself through the couple-year battle, she had was amazing. She was extremely resilient. She was one of the nicest people I’ve ever met so this is just kind of paying honor to her. I think about her all the time.”
McCarthy, who lost in a playoff last week at the Valero Texas Open, had a chance to play a couple rounds of golf with Smith over the last few years and tried to provide emotional support throughout her ordeal.
“Honestly, I learned probably way more from her in that couple of years than she could have learned from me,” he said. “She taught me a lot of the life lessons that I’ll carry with me from now on.”
Entering No. 1
Scott Scheffler enters the Masters as the world’s No. 1 ranked golfer.
It’s no guarantee of a victory, of course.
Although he was one of six world No. 1′s to win here.
The world’s top ranked golfer entering the week has won the Masters six times: Ian Woosnam (1991), Fred Couples (1992), Tiger Woods (2001 & 2002), Dustin Johnson (2020), and Scheffler (2022).
-Stan Awtrey, Chip Towers and Chris Vivlamore contributed to this report.
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