Phil Mickelson earned almost universal congratulations for his victory in the PGA Championship – almost because Bernhard Langer laughed when Mickelson was proclaimed the oldest winner of a major golf tournament.
“How old is he? Fifty?” Langer said. “He’s a kid, a punk. I was 59 in 2017 when I won the Regions Tradition, which makes me the oldest to win a PGA Champions Tour major.”
One major (so to speak) problem, though: winning a PGA Tour major isn’t the same as winning a PGA Champions Tour major because the latter, when it was born in 1980, was called the Senior PGA Tour, which sort of made it sound like the old-timers’ tour. It wasn’t renamed the Champions Tour until 2002 and the PGA still lists its records separately.
“Yeah, well, to hell with that,” Langer snapped. “We play with the same clubs and balls on some of the same courses. Some day, and I hope it’s soon because I’ll be 64 in August, the PGA will get around to recognizing us so-called geezers and saying a major is a major, period.”
Except that if the PGA ever does acknowledge the senior golfers on a par (so to speak) with the PGA Tour players, it’ll erase Langer from the record book because the oldest winner of a Senior PGA Championship is the late Jock Hutchison, who was 62 when he won it in 1947.
“Yeah, well …” Langer muttered, slipping into a momentary funk before saying, “at least someday maybe I’ll shoot my age. Let’s see Hutch do that.”
Mickelson’s accomplishment spurred some research into other age-related sports accomplishments.
Al Unser Sr. was just five days shy of his 48th birthday in 1987 when he became the oldest winner of the Indianapolis 500. It was his fourth victory in the classic race. However, the oldest Indy 500 competitor was another four-time champion, A.J. Foyt, who was 57 when he drove his last Indy 500 in 1992 – coincidentally when Al Unser Jr. won the race and Al Sr. finished third.
But the oldest driver ever to circle the famed Brickyard was Leo Schlemiel, 87, who fell asleep in the infield during the 1947 race, woke up six hours after fellow landsman Mauri Rose had won it and spent an hour driving around the track looking for an exit.
Most hockey fans know that Gordie Howe was the oldest NHL player ever as a member of the 1980 Hartford Whalers, 11 days after his 52nd birthday. What most fans don’t know is that he also was the oldest NHL player to score what was then known as a “Gordie Howe hat trick,” namely getting a goal, an assist and a fighting penalty for flattening Marty Howe, his 25-year-old son and teammate. “I borrowed dad’s car for the weekend and forgot to refill the tank,” Marty said.
While George Blanda is still listed as the oldest player in NFL history at age 48, a recent investigation discovered that the record actually is held by Tom Brady, who will turn 65 on June 11.
“Okay, you got me,” Brady said after a recent offseason workout with Tampa Bay Buccaneers teammates. “I’ll admit it. I was Joe Montana at Ringgold High School, Notre Dame and for 15 years with the 49ers and Chiefs.”
He said he took 1995 off when he underwent a lot of plastic surgery, bone grafts and physical therapy, “then I changed my identity, enrolled at Michigan and, well, you know the rest,” Brady said. “And if you think you see Joe Montana on TV or somewhere, that’s just a guy in makeup and a costume, probably an Elvis impersonator branching out since Elvis isn’t as hot as he used to be.”
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