After the trials and tribulations they incurred at Augusta National this week, TPC at Sugarloaf is going to feel like a local muni for Fred Couples, Miguel Angel Jimenez and Berhard Langer.
All three over-50 players not only made the cut at the Masters but were in the championship mix on Sunday. And all three will be in Duluth later this week for the Champions Tour’s Greater Gwinnett Championship.
Leading the pack was the 50-year-old Jimenez. The cigar-smoking Spaniard rallied on the back nine to shoot 71 and finish fourth. It was the best finish by an over-50 player in the Masters since Sam Snead finished third in 1963.
“The people, they take care of themselves,” said Jimenez, who draws chuckles for his unusual stretching routine before each round. “They are being more healthy. If you don’t want to be here at 50, you shouldn’t be here. I love the game, I love competing, and probably that is the reason.”
Not surprisingly, the threesome will head west on I-20 this week with golf bags chocked full of confidence.
“I think it’s a statement, yeah,” Langer said of the plus-50 set contending at Augusta. “There’s a lot of good over 50 players. We can compete at the highest level and even on a very, very long golf course like this one.”
Langer was not known a long hitter even in his younger days. But he managed to get around Augusta’s 7,500-yard course well enough to card one of Sunday’s best rounds, a 69. He left the course with his name among the top 10 on the leaderboard.
Couples, who faces down Langer regularly on the Champions Tour, was not surprised.
“The Champions Tour is tough,” he said. “When you’re winning all the time, you stay on your feet and you feel like you’re doing well. Then when you come over here, it would be like winning the lottery for he or I to win this thing, but you never know. If I would have had his round today, I would be sitting here maybe at 4 under and I probably wouldn’t be worried about winning, but it would be a lot better than whatever the heck I shot.”
Couples streak of amazing consistency remained intact. The 54-year-old, one-time Masters champion (1992) shot 75 on Sunday to fall from 11th to 20th. But it was his fifth consecutive Top 20 or better finish since turning 50.
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