Bernhard Langer Discusses His Final Masters | The 2025 Masters

Bernhard Langer arrives for his 41st and final Masters. Emotions are high for the 2x Masters champion.

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Since 1934, the Masters Tournament has been home to some of golf’s greatest moments. Amidst blooming azaleas, towering pines and flowering dogwoods, the first full week of April ushers in a stage unique to golf and to sport. Over four days and 72 holes, the smallest field in major championship golf competes for a chance to capture the Green Jacket and a place in Masters history.

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okay it’s been a while since I’ve been in here well hopefully good afternoon ladies and gentlemen uh we’re pleased to announce uh and welcome a two-time Masters winner uh Burnhard Longer to the interview room uh Bernard Hart has announced that this is his last masters which means this will be his 41st masters uh and congratulation and celebration of those years we’d like to address your attention to these two screens it’s a great honor to win the greatest tournament in the world perfect yes we all want to win that tournament and it’s always a pleasure being here earn hard at Langanger the 1985 Masters Champion there’s so much history and so many wonderful moments i was just trying to stay cool and just play my own [Music] game how about that drive how about that second shot and how about that puck wow bernhard Longa takes a fivestroke advantage into the final two holes and at last the smiles are coming well another moment unmatched for Bernard Longard to enjoy and when you do it twice it’s got to be twice as good it means a lot to me i’ve always wanted to win a a major tournament it’s just a dream come true you’re a great champion country ought to be proud to be here at the Mast’s tournament truly a wonderful blessing and I’ve enjoyed every one of them very nice very nice thank you bernard you have always represented the Masters in the game in an extraordinary manner can you reflect in the times over the years and give us some sense and feel about how you feel about this week well it’s been an incredible journey for u you know for a young man being born in a village of 800 people in Bavaria where golf was nothing uh to make it here to get an invitation to play the masters first time around when it was extremely difficult for European or international players to get an invitation and then to to win the first masters on the third goound uh was just a dream come true it’s incredible um as I said golf was nothing in Germany i had no idea when I turned pro what was what I was going to be facing i had no role model i had no one to compare myself with it was I was just the one you know starting something uh that nobody’s ever done before in in Germany so coming here uh the first time seeing driving down Magnolia Lane seeing this place uh was an eye openener for me i’d never seen a golf course manicured like this or a a tournament run as uh efficiently as as this has been and what’s even more astonishing is how they’ve evolved and improved and continue to make this the best experience for players for champions for the patrons for you i believe I can say that just looking around at at this media building uh it’s incredible and the things they continue to do uh with the drive chimp and pot that I witnessed yesterday again you know the kids having a big smile on their faces uh the ladies amate tournament the tournaments they uh sponsor and provide in South America and Asia and on and on it goes the master’s brand has grown to unbelievable heights and when you look around you don’t see a tent everything is a solid building for one week of the year and you go from the cheap food for the patrons to the parking i don’t have to tell you you know all that but I’m just throwing out a few things that makes this tournament so special and for me as a past champion you know to have our own locker room to have our own parking facility u it’s really unique and uh it it means a great deal and and I think I can say this for every champion extremely proud to be wearing the green jacket and representing uh the masters all over the world bernard what does this week mean for you uh it’s very emotional you can tell already my my voice is breaking a bit just uh realizing it’s going to be my last competitive masters uh after you know four decades uh it’s going to be bittersweet i think I I knew it was time to call it quits as a player i wanted to do it last year but I couldn’t with my Achilles surgery the course is just getting too long and I’m getting shorter and shorter and I’m hitting hybrids where the other kids hit nine irons and eight irons maybe wedges so I I knew I wasn’t in going to be in contention anymore and uh you know a few years back I asked the chairman of the club is there a time limit you know is there like do we age out when we’re 60 or what is it and uh he said no you will know when it’s time to quit it’s totally up to you and uh it is time to quit i’m just not competitive on this course anymore we’re playing what 7,500 plus yards and I’m used to playing courses around 7100 uh I can still compete there but not not at this distance okay thank you we’re going to open the the floor up for questions in English and or German tom you’re first hey Bernard Tom D’Angelo from the Palm Beach Post what was that like for you emotionally watching that video number one and secondly with all these emotions once you get inside the ropes and hit that f first T-OT will you be able to just play golf without thinking about that usually I’m pretty good compartmentalizing so when I’m when I’m on inside the ropes my mind switches to being a competitor and and uh you know play golf and have take care of the task in front of me but I it might get uh I might get a bit emotional just looking around in the in the spectators seeing my my family my kids my grandkids uh my brother and and other friends that are going to be supporting me this week so watching these two videos obviously they’re the the two most uh important wins in my career um and it it kind of put a smile on me how how bad my English was at the time and uh you know the red outfit and all that kind of stuff i I always tease Tiger i said “See I I was the one wearing a red shirt first he he came later.” Uh anyways brings back wonderful memories i think the second time in 93 my my wife was greeting me with uh three of our kids so a lot had changed you know from 85 to 93 and there’s just a lot going through my mind john Bernhard when you when you joined the Champions Tour did you envision that you’d be doing this 17 18 years later and and if not what keeps you going yes good question John um no I had no idea i just uh try to be exempt you know my whole life which which I was fortunate enough to be i was exempt on the PJ tour i was exempt on the European tour even till I turned 50 and I realized in my late 40s uh it it got tougher and tougher out on the tour uh even though I lost in a playoff when I was 49 and a half uh at Fort Worth at Colonial i was in a playoff but uh didn’t win it anyways um I just thought I’ll try the Champions Tour for a few weeks and see if I like it or not i really had no idea what it was be like and I think it was after three weeks I said “Man this place is great this is where I want to spend the majority of my golfing life and uh just kind of played less and less in Europe less and less on the regular tour and kind of focused on the Champions Tour but even then I was just trying to be one of the better players i had no idea what kind of Champions Tour career I I would have and was blessed with fairly good health and a lot of success ann hi Burnernhard your success story is just incredible particularly from your childhood what you had to overcome what would your message be to everyone about longevity uh consistency following your dream yeah those uh big words longevity and consistency especially in the game of golf it’s so fragile it’s so volatile it’s like the stock market uh it just comes and goes you know you hear major winners one day and then you don’t hear about him again two years later for some reason so it’s it’s a difficult thing i guess uh God has blessed me with tremendous talent and and uh being a great competitor but there’s many other things that are important you need to be healthy you got to have a great support system a good caddy a good coach uh on and on the list the list goes on and you got to be willing to uh sacrifice as well because it’s not always easy you know when you when I tell some of the people I’m professional golfer out on tour and go wa that’s got to be the greatest job in the world it is at times but you also you’re away from family away from friends you’re in hotel rooms uh it’s lonely at times it’s it’s not always rosy and easy and and you you got to be able to to do all that don Bernard two questions if I may first of all congratulations on your extraordinary career when you’re playing your final round here be it Friday or Sunday do you think there’s a place on the course or a moment where it might really hit you that this is it well if it doesn’t hit me earlier on it will definitely hit me on 18 i I know that but uh one of my favorite places was always Aman Corner here it’s just a beautiful uh part of the golf course and uh the 13th hole you know I’ve made Eagle there on Saturday in 85 to get into contention and I made Eagle on Sunday in 93 to win uh so that’s become one of my favorite holes not just because I made eagles but just the beauty of the hole and and what what it uh demands from you so yeah to answer your question hopefully I can control myself uh till the 18s but there’s no guarantees and and if I can just follow up um many other legends of the game have played their final rounds at some point have you spoken to any of them about navigating the day and controlling your emotions what they experienced yeah absolutely i was you know having breakfast yesterday with Larry Mice who’s one of my better friends we go to Bible studies together on tour and we go way back we usually sit together at the champions dinner and and he said farewell uh was it last year or two years ago anyways he’s already been through it and uh you know he gave a little uh speech at the champions dinner and uh he just broke down he just you know couldn’t say what he wanted to say it was just uh overwhelming and too much for him and um you know I I told him in he said yeah I totally screwed up i said no you didn’t it was just you know showing how much it meant to you and and I said something like “But it’s it was probably even far more important for you because you grew up here in Augusta you’re local local boy local hero you know I’m from Germany and it it means a great deal for me too living in Florida now and having married an American and and raised my um kids in this country and all that so I’ll pick a few more people’s brains you know I was hoping to talk to Sandy Lyle and and Ian Wnam and a couple of my other buddies who already said goodbye mark but um it it’s never easy not for any of us helena I think I’ll stick to English so everybody else can understand it as well um once more going back to Unhousen and your childhood and youth maybe was there ever even a thought of playing at a tournament like this despite the fact that you’ve left a legacy over decades now but was there ever when did you even hear about the Masters for the first time back then what was the what was the thought you know I don’t recall the exact day or year when when I heard about the Masters tournament but it was certainly not easy it was not on television when I was a child actually we didn’t even have a television till I was about 12 years old I think my dad couldn’t afford one and then it only had three channels i’m sure the Masters wasn’t on one of those three channels um and uh you know eventually when I was assistant pro I probably got a hold of some golf magazines at the club where I worked and in April you know the Masters I’m sure they somebody reported about it so it must have happened then uh but it was this far out there you know America was far away uh American golfers were supposed to be the greatest and the best and it was all kind of a a dream i I didn’t even know I was going to become a tournament player and my goals were just to be good in Europe and then as I became one of the better Europeans obviously my my dream stretched out and my goals went across the ocean as well jeff um your favorite shot to hit on the course and your your least favorite or your nemesis out there yeah there were many of those in a way um my my three best shots might have been in 93 at at 13 uh because I I think I only had a two-shot lead over Chip at the time and I hit a beautiful draw around the corner hit a three iron off a little downhill sidehill lie that’s maybe the best three iron I’ve ever hit in my life uh to about 10 12 ft inside of Chip and I saw he puted on the same line as me from further away so I saw the break and then I made the eagle putt so that was that was pretty uh incredible there but the very same old a few years ago I hit a beautiful two hybrid it took off 50 yards just right on line and I hit it the way I wanted to and it hit a tiny little twick you know there’s some of these big trees that overhang the branches and one was coming down as a little twig and it touched that twig and went 40 yards left into the bushes and I made seven uh hitting a perfect golf shot literally so it’s that that’s golf you know you can only control so much but there’s so many hard shots out here uh because the greens are huge but there’s tiny little spots where you have to land the ball like number four or number five or you go on and on you know number seven is becoming uh brutal for me because it’s so long when you come in with a four iron you can’t stop it and there’s various other holes like that sam Bernard I’m uh interested in your resilience and uh your career particularly overcoming putting issues and it seems you had to reinvent yourself on multiple occasions with your putting stroke and I wonder um what lengths did you have to go to to to um to overcome the yips in cases yeah those were the the hardest times in in my life uh in my golfing life I should say um I’ve had the yips on four different occasions um seemed like every seven years for some reason just not lately thank goodness so I I remember vividly 1989 I was playing in Detroit the Buick Invitational and uh so this I’d already won the Masters and I won the European money list twice and all that kind of stuff but uh I was playing there and I think I’ve hit uh 17 greens in regulation one day and 16 the next day and I was like 11 over par for the two days and missed the cut and it was the absolute low u you know of my career i couldn’t hit the ball any better than than I did and I couldn’t putt any worse than I did and so I packed my stuff missing the cut went back to my hotel and literally uh got on my knees i was already a believer at the time and said a prayer like uh God I’m if if you want me done with this game uh I’m I’m ready to give it up uh you know just show me what you want me to do uh and I’ll pack it up no more golf um and a friend of mine was there praying with me and and he said “Uh I don’t think he’s done with you yet see he he want he wants you to persevere.” I said “Persevere i’ve been persevering for years and years and it’s it’s getting worse and worse you know that kind of thing.” Um and he said “No just give it a few more weeks.” And you know now we look back a lot of things have happened many good things uh in my golfing life since 1989 including the second masters as well david you you spoke about um wanting to call it last year and then the injury um that’s a tough injury to recover from what what did how did this week loom in your mind on those days when rehab was tough yeah it was a big part of it but uh you know rehab was mostly to just regain the ability to walk to stand to swing the club uh to function in life you know at the time I was uh 66 and uh or actually yeah 66 so that’s not an age nowadays my mother lived till she was 100 so I I didn’t want to live maybe the next 25 35 years as an invalid or whatever you call it so half a so I the goal was just to get back to getting healthy and strong and um I pushed myself pretty hard um problem is the last I’ve been playing competitive golf I think since May or so last year so almost almost uh yeah 11 months or something like that but I’ve been driving a golf cart most of the time which is allowed on the on the champions tour and so I’m now trying to walk more and more and it’s it’s not easy yeah I I walked 18 holes yesterday and I was totally exhausted and done and I was glad I I could do it but uh you know walking five or six days in a row on on this terrain uh it’s going to be really hard joy Mr langanger uh when young kids come to you and if they want to have even a quarter of the legendary career that you have had what kind of character advice would you give them it’s not just the skills but but the character advice well it’s you got to be totally dedicated nowadays to to become really good there’s so much competition worldwide the game has grown uh all over the globe and u you know as you get up higher and higher and better and better it gets tougher and tougher and for everyone that gives up there’s a thousand who who will take your spot um so you got to be very focused very determined you got to live a disciplined life and um be able to sacrifice a few things and focus on on what’s important jack hi Burnernhard uh first off congratulations um secondly I’m wondering if you could walk us through your 18 holes yesterday how you felt gamewise and if you could also speak to the differences that you’ve seen in the golf course well I’ve been here every year i’ve seen the differences they’ve make made in the in the golf course over the years you know I played in the 80s when there was no rough the fairways were wide and then there were pine straw or pine needles and trees uh then they brought in the intermediate cut as they call it uh planted 5,000 trees plus then they lengthen the course then they changed the 11 screen and you know continuous improvements to challenge the players uh to what kind of what they were facing long time ago and uh I think the goal if I’m not mistaken is to have the players hit similar irons into the green as they did in the 1960s or 80s or 2000 whenever whenever it was and uh they probably are very very close at that uh not for me though i realized again yesterday I probably should have quit several years ago because I’m uh you know where I’m driving it um I sometimes can’t see the flag there’s a good chance I can’t see the flag on one because I don’t get it to the top of the hill there’s a very good chance I can’t see it on 17 uh and and various other places there’s part fours when I’m hitting three-wood into the green when other guys are hitting eight ir eight irons nine irons seven irons and this course is not built to be hit those kind of clubs you know like yesterday I hit a a a pretty good three hybrid into number one and it hit the middle of the green and took off and I was over the green and that’s no place to chip from uh you don’t ever want to go over that green and and that’s what happens you know when you have those kind of clubs into the greens it’s time to quit thank you Bernard when I think of the stereotypical German athlete I think of the resolve and the mental strength i think of your football players in penalty shootouts and in your best moments you you have shown that too you’re clearly so emotional at the moment and as you admitted you will be this week how emotional usually would you say you are do you kind of recognize yourself in this moment yeah I’ve I know that I’ve always been emotional uh just kind of kept it inside of me um most of the time and like I said sometimes in certainly in competition um I I was very focused on what’s at hand what’s a task but uh you know I’ve seen it in writer cups I’ve I I know myself I’ve cried over and over at home when things have been you know worth crying for or about and uh I’m not ashamed of it my dad was uh the same way and and he was my hero as well so there’s nothing wrong with it there’s many things that are worth crying about john Nhard what do you appreciate about this place and this experience that maybe you didn’t in your 30s 20s and 30s no I’ve always appre appreciated a lot of the things uh about this tournament uh it is extremely unique it’s the only major that’s happening at the same venue over and over and over and that’s why people I think can relate so much like I heard an interview today from some of the young rookies like Max Grazerman and a couple others and it’s their first time here but they feel like they’ve been here before because they’ve seen the pots from here and there they’ve seen shots on certain holes year after year after year and that doesn’t happen in other major championships because they move around you know even St andrews who’s in the rotation maybe every five or seven years there’s it’s nothing like this this uh this place is so special and so unique and u I appreciate that but there’s hundreds of other things I appreciate about the place some of them I mentioned earlier on what makes uh the Masters so unique and and so special and so different from from any other golf tournament uh that we play in uh and you notice I mean it doesn’t go unnoticed it’s just special we have time for two more questions felix Helena I I guess you’ve always enjoyed sharing your knowledge about this place with younger players do you have an estimate of how many questions you’ve been asked about uh the nature of Augusta by by younger players and what’s going to happen with all that knowledge now i mean is there a book coming out next year that we can expect with secret knowledge about Mast’s uh wins well there’s no secret there’s uh some knowledge that many other people have too that have played here a few times i think it’s just how to best attack the golf course on each hole and uh yeah hopefully my brain will still function the next few years and if anybody wants to pick my brain any of the youngsters I’ll be happy to share it with them final question Sam how does a kid growing up in Germany in a in a little village where golf is sort of a exotic and obscure pursuit even begin to start to construct a golf swing what did you do very early on because it had to be I would think selftaught it was self-taught and uh I got into the game through my older brother who was catting so when I give my testimony or talk about my young growing up I was fell in love with money first as a caddy I was earning money as a 9-year-old you know that was pretty cool uh but I immediately immediately fell in love with the game we were able to to practice a little bit um and chip and putt and hit balls on the range if there were no members to caddy for and we couldn’t afford golf clubs but one of the members discarded some of his old uh sticks they actually had bamboo shafts and it was a two a two with a three iron a seven iron and a putter with a bent shaft i always say that’s where my putting problems came from thank you very much Burnhard thank you very much and good luck this week thank you picture there appreciate it thank you thank you