Player of the Year Langer looks to be the favorite

HUALALAI, Hawaii >> It’s hard to distinguish what is a sure thing on the PGA Tour Champions. Is it Bernhard Langer winning player of the year or being the prohibitive favorite at today’s season-opening Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai?

Neither will take you too far into the rough. Langer was named the tour’s top player for the fifth consecutive year and the eighth time overall. The awards were presented at the championship dinner Tuesday night with Ken Tanigawa also being named rookie of the year.

Langer won twice last year and was a runner-up six times en route to 14 top 10s and a fifth Charles Schwab Cup championship. The 61-year-old also won the Arnold Palmer award given to the leading money winner. Oh, by the way, that’s seven straight times and 10 overall that Langer has worn the king’s crown.

“I have great respect for all my fellow competitors,” Langer said in a release. “To be voted player of the year by my peers makes the award even more special. So many players played well last year and the competition has never been higher. I’m very blessed to have played well enough to win the award eight times.”

Langer will be in the final pairing with Schwab Cup runner-up Scott McCarron in today’s opening 18 holes. Langer has won this tournament three times and is usually near the top even in years he doesn’t put the hardware in his trunk on his way to the airport.

The favorite with the gamblers is Steve Stricker. He is one of five golfers playing this tournament for the first time. The other four making their debuts here at this winners-only tournament are Bart Bryant, Steve Flesch, Scott Parel and Tanigawa, who got his first senior win last year. He also had three top 10s overall to garner the rookie award.

“Last year was a dream season for me and I’m very grateful to be named rookie of the year,” Tanigawa said. He beat out Kent Jones for the award. “I proved a lot to myself and loved competing alongside some of the game’s best players.”

In all, 42 golfers are teeing it up today, including some of the greatest players ever to swing a club. Joining in to try to win the first prize are defending champ Jerry Kelly, nine World Golf Hall of Fame members in Langer, Fred Couples, Hale Irwin, Tom Kite, Sandy Lyle, Colin Montgomerie, Mark O’Meara, Vijay Singh and Tom Watson as well as seven golfers who have won this event before.

To give a little more perspective, of the 42 players in the field, 16 have won 32 major titles on the PGA Tour. As a group, they have won 319 tour events and 272 more on the senior circuit. It’s a distinguished collection that includes four golfers who played at last week’s Sony Open in Hawaii. Only Stricker made it through to the weekend, with Singh, Kelly and Kenny Perry not making the cut. Stricker went one more day before suffering the same fate on the Monday did not finish.

Still, three of the four plan to play in more PGA Tour events this year, including Singh.

“I’d like to start off winning here at Hualalai, that’s my goal,” Singh said. “I’m playing decent right now, so I just have to maintain the intensity and see if I can win this one. For the rest of the season I’m playing six events starting at AT&T on the regular tour so, hopefully I can put my game together one weekend and see what happens.”

As for Kelly, he’s in the middle of a swing change after having surgery to his knee. He debuted it at the Sony Open, where he missed the cut by a single shot. He’s been warming up for that tour event on the Hualalai course for years, giving him a big advantage last year in the senior’s season opener.

“You know it was kind of cheating last year (when he won) because I wasn’t a rookie on this golf course,” Kelly said. “I had probably more course knowledge than most of the guys playing in the tournament. I’ve been coming here for almost 15 years. I love it here.”

Langer echoed that sentiment.

“It’s my favorite spot,” Langer said of the Jack Nicklaus-designed course. “I look forward to coming here every year. This is my 12th start here and it’s absolutely my favorite stop of the year. We are starting off in the right place.”