KITCHENAID SENIOR PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

May 27, 2022

Bernhard Langer

Press Conference

Harbor Shores

JOHN DEVER: Good afternoon. Welcome back to the 2022 KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship here at Harbor Shores. We're in Benton Harbor, Michigan, and we're with our 2017 champion Bernhard Langer who posted a second 3-under par 68 today. 6-under par, you're in good position. You played good golf today. With the way the wind was picking up and the wet conditions, that might sit well overnight.

BERNHARD LANGER: Well, the goal is to be either in the lead or close to the lead going into Sunday afternoon. It's pretty bunched up, I believe, and will be. Conditions were pretty rough. It was cold today, much colder, and the ball -- I think the modern golf ball, you can't compress it properly, and it just went nowhere at times.

I mis-clubbed a couple times and hit a couple of -- fanned it out to the right early on, wasn't happy with my swing, and then it finally got better as the day goes on.

Q. A lot of people think a great round is 62s and of 63s, but today 68 seemed like a great round. What's the inner satisfaction of posting a score when conditions are like this?

BERNHARD LANGER: Well, it's nice to go below 70 on a day like this because it's not easy. The course played a lot longer, I thought, than yesterday, like Steven said. The par-5s were -- well, I could only get to maybe one or two yesterday, but even today most of them were not reachable.

Even some of the par-4s and the par-3s just played longer because the colder weather and the different wind made a difference, too. I think the course may play a little bit harder with this wind than what we had yesterday.

Q. How much of a club difference was it for you all day? Was it one club? Was it half a club?

BERNHARD LANGER: Oh, yesterday I felt like the ball was actually going further than what I thought or what I'm used to, and today it went at least a club or club and a half less. I would say two clubs at times.

Q. When did the weather conditions get really adverse? It started out chilly this morning and the wind went from gentle to a little more. When did it become an issue?

BERNHARD LANGER: It's been raining on and off the whole day really. We had several squalls like this one because I checked the Weather Channel just before we left, before we teed off, and it actually looked pretty good, very little rain until about 11:00, a quick shower and then at 2:00. I was very disappointed how wrong they were again because it started raining right away on the second hole or something the umbrella was out, or the first hole.

Yesterday they were wrong, and today they were wrong again.

Yesterday we got the nice weather in the afternoon/evening, today it just turned the other way.

Q. 72 holes this week; how does the physical and mental coming off of like a day like today, maybe not normal for you guys, but this afternoon these guys are going to be very unhappy when they get done. How much does that make it difficult tomorrow or even Sunday?

BERNHARD LANGER: I don't think it makes a big difference. We played 72 holes all our lives really and still do for whatever it is, seven tournaments a year or something on the Champions Tour. Some of us play one or two of the other majors. So I don't think it really matters a great deal.

The only negative could be if you finish tonight at 8:30 and have a 7:00 tee time tomorrow, but I don't think that will be the case. We don't know what the tee times are.

I think most of the guys will handle it quite well.

Q. I don't know how much previously this season you've been paired with Steven, but he's been on a great run. I'm curious your impressions of his game?

BERNHARD LANGER: Very impressive, just what he's done, not having any status coming out here -- when did he come out, summer last year?

Q. Late last summer.

BERNHARD LANGER: To just top 10 it every week, that's hard to do out here, and then finally won one and now has just got confidence.

But I talk about other guys, and I think he's got one of the best swings out here. He doesn't seem to have a weakness. He's reasonably long for the pound per pound he's pretty good, very straight, and got a good short game. So there's no real weakness. Hits a lot of really quality shots and hits it pretty close.