KAILUA-KONA >> Bernhard Langer believes good things come in threes after being declared the winner of the Mitsubishi Electric Championship.
Thanks to a wind-swept Hualalai golf course that forced the cancellation of Saturday’s third round of the first PGA Tour Champions event of 2017, 36-hole leader Langer was called off the course just as he was about to hit his third shot on the opening hole.
The German native became the first person to win this tournament three times and celebrated his 33rd wedding anniversary with wife, Vikki, and three of his four children. He tied Hale Irwin’s mark of winning at least one senior event 11 consecutive years and moved out of a tie for second in all-time wins on the champions tour with Lee Trevino. Langer has 30 victories with Irwin leading the way with 45.
Langer led by one going into Saturday’s closing 18 over Fred Couples thanks in part to his birdie at 18 on Friday that followed Couples’ costly bogey. Langer’s 15-under 129 score will go into the record books. Couples finished second at 14-under 130 with Kirk Triplett placing third at 13-under 131.
Only five golfers completed their rounds with the best score of 75 carded by Craig Stadler, Sandy Lyle and Roger Chapman. Hall of Fame golfer Tom Watson was 11 over for his round through the 16th hole.
The only golfers under par were past Sony Open in Hawaii champ Paul Goydos at 3 under through 13, Doug Garwood at 1 under through six, Gene Sauers at 1 under through three and Lee Jansen at 1 under after two. None of the scores in the third round will count since it wasn’t completed.
Sustained winds of 15-25 mph with gusts of 45 had golf balls rolling off the greens. The scoring average soared to 79.027. Play was suspended at 1:20 p.m. with Langer and Couples on the first green. Twenty minutes later the players were called off the course with the decision not to play reached at 2:10 p.m.
“The winds kept getting stronger and the golf course became unplayable,” PGA Tour Champions vice president of rules and competition Brian Claar said. “Balls were going up by the hole, rolling back off the green. Four or five of the greens you couldn’t play.
“The forecast was to get as bad or worse. Sunday didn’t look any better. So taking everything into consideration, golf course, flights and the fact that it wasn’t getting any better, we came to the tough decision that it’s a 36-hole tournament.”
Nobody was going to argue with Claar, particularly Langer, who said he was surprised the round lasted as long as it did.
“Obviously, it’s not the way I wanted to win,” Langer said. “I was ready to compete and battle it out. But I don’t make the rules. But for me personally, it was a magical week. Starting the year off with another win and continuing basically where I left off last year is pretty amazing.”
As for the conditions, well as Langer said, they were tough. He hit what he described as a beautiful tee shot at the first only to watch it hit the fairway and bounce sideways in the rough. The 59-year-old’s second shot was a good 8-iron.
“You had to guess so much,” Langer said. “A flyer out of the rough, how much will the wind affect it or not affect it. I hit a really good shot and it took off like this (motioning to the right). It ended up on the green pin high, so I was happy with it.”
Couples wasn’t as fortunate as his second shot wound up in the bunker where a bogey seemed likely. Late in Friday’s round, Couples’ back began to bother him that led to a bad drive on 18 and a second shot that ended up in the bunker that eventually resulted in a costly bogey-five.
Had they finished in a tie, Couples and Langer would have been in a playoff that might have been held Saturday or today, or played somewhere down the road on the mainland. Fortunately for everyone that eventuality didn’t happen.
“Well, that would have been a decision we would have had to make,” Claar said. “We would have talked to the sponsor and once we found out the forecast was terrible, those discussions never came. So we just made the best decision in the interest of everybody.”
