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Bernhard Langer: Ryder Cup
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Bernhard Langer steered the 2004 European Ryder Cup team to a stunning victory on USA soil, Langer's team thrashing the home side to a record 18.5 points to 9.5 points victory. The team were full of praise for their captain, with Ian Poulter describing Langer as 'awesome' and Thomas Levet using every english superlative he could to describe his captain.
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Langer was born in Anhausen near Augsburg, Bavaria, Germany. He turned professional in 1976 and has won many events in Europe and the United States, among them The Masters in 1985 and 1993. He was the inaugural World Number 1 when the Official World Golf Rankings were introduced in 1986, and he became a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2001. He ranks second in career wins on the European Tour, with forty and has ... played regularly on the U.S. based PGA Tour, especially in the late 1980s and since 2000. He has shown great durability, finishing in a tie for fifth at The Open Championship the month before his forty-eighth birthday and regaining a place in the top hundred of the rankings three months before his fiftieth birthday. He played on 10 Ryder Cup teams (1981, 1983, 1985, 1987, 1989, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1997, 2002) and was non-playing captain of the victorious European team in 2004.
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Langer, aged 45, succeeds Scotland's Sam Torrance, who led Europe to a 15 1/2 - 12 1/2 victory over the United States at The De Vere Belfry last September. He becomes the 19th golfer to Captain a European Ryder Cup Team against the United States, the second from Continental Europe following Severiano Ballesteros of Spain in 1997, and the first from Germany to be accorded the honour.
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Langer ... passed on the first round of the FedEx Cup Playoffs to play in the KLM Open with his son Stefan. He is currently is ranked 59th and probably will qualify for the third round of the playoffs, if he wants to play. Langer turns 50 years old today and has four top-10's in only 14 tournaments played on Tour this season.
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Langer made his Ryder Cup debut in the company of Spain's Manuel Pinero in the top foursomes match in 1981. The same combination was sent out again by Captain John Jacobs in the following morning's fourballs, and they recorded a 2 and 1 victory over the redoubtable pairing of Ray Floyd and Hale Irwin. The Langer legend had begun in earnest.
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Langer reiterated he would not play in the Ryder Cup matches in September at Oakland Hills outside Detroit, not even if he has played well enough to merit a slot. He has long begun his duties as European coach. New York Times
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