Bernhard Langer has capped a dominant 2014 season by sealing the Charles Schwab Cup on the US Champions Tour, the second time in his career he has claimed the honour.
The German has been in impressive form on both sides of the Atlantic this year, winning The Senior Open Championship Presented by Rolex as well as a record five Champions Tour titles.
His tied sixth place finish in the AT&T Championship on TPC San Antonio's AT&T Canyons Course on Sunday was his 17th top ten finish of the season overall and was enough to ensure he won the Charles Schwab Cup for the first time in four years, becoming only the second player after Hale Irwin in 2002 to clinch the title before the season-ending event.
Langer, who also leads the Champions Tour Money List, said: "I'm a guy who tries his best whenever I tee it up, and I'm still going to tee it up next week hoping to win the tournament. There's still a lot of money on the line. But there's a little less pressure now. I get to enjoy it."
The 57 year old has been battling it out with Colin Montgomerie for supremacy in America, just as the two former Ryder Cup teammates have also enjoyed some stunning success on the European Senior Tour in 2014.
Even by his own high standards, Langer has been remarkably consistent in 2014, only finishing outside the top ten three times in 20 appearances on the Champions Tour.
He won the season-opening event in Hawaii in January to commence a run of ten consecutive top ten finishes, and his fast start to the year also included a share of eighth place at the Masters Tournament at Augusta National, a Major he won twice during his regular Tour career.
Montgomerie then grasped the upper hand by winning both the US Senior PGA Championship presented by KitchenAid and the US Senior Open, but Langer responded by marching to a 13-stroke victory when Wales hosted The Senior Open Championship Presented by Rolex for the first time at Royal Porthcawl.
That came after victories in the Insperity Invitaional and the Senior Players Championship – both classed as Majors on the Champions Tour – and he claimed a fifth title in the Dicks Sporting Goods Open in August.
Langer’s superb stretch even led to him being touted as an outside bet for a Ryder Cup spot, and a week before the biennial contest at Gleneagles, the victorious 2004 European Captain returned to his homeland for the WINSTONgolf Senior Open, where he narrowly missed out on another title, losing in a play-off to Englishman Paul Wesselingh, the 2013 Senior Tour Order of Merit winner.
With Montgomerie unable to match Langer’s top ten in San Antonio, Langer takes an unassailable Charles Schwab Cup lead over Montgomerie into the final event of the Champions Tour campaign, the Charles Schwab Cup Championship in Scottsdale, Arizona.
However, it is the reverse in Europe, with Montgomerie’s record season earnings of €607, 477 meaning he cannot be toppled from the top spot on the Order of Merit going into the MCB Tour Championship in Mauritius, from December 12-14.
