Team Langer edges Team Woods in PNC Championship playoff

ORLANDO, Fla. – OK, fine, Father Time is undefeated.

But Bernhard Langer, 67, at least seems to have managed a draw.

He and youngest son Jason, after setting the 36-hole PNC Championship record at 28-under along with Tiger and Charlie Woods – both teams shot 15-under 57 – won the tournament with Bernhard’s 15-foot eagle putt on the first extra hole Sunday.

“For me personally, it just makes me focus even more so,” Langer said of being, ahem, not quite the people’s choice here. “I seem to enjoy that challenge to be the underdog or to play in tough circumstances. It just helps me to zero in even more.”

The two teams made a combined 27 birdies and three eagles over 19 holes in the Scramble format at Ritz-Carlton Golf Club.

Although Charlie, 15, authored the moment of the match, making his first career hole-in-one at the fourth hole, Team Langer remained unmoved. It Jason and Bernhard's second straight win and fourth overall (Bernhard has won six overall). The winning putt was set up by the second shot of Jason Langer, who played golf for Penn and now works as in finance in New York City.

“The crowd was more than anything I've ever played in front of for sure,” he said. “I'm not that competitive these days. I play a couple amateur events a year.

“But definitely today was not something that I am used to.”

This was the record sixth PNC win for Langer, for he also won here twice with his oldest son Stefan, who caddied for Jason. It had been only 42 days since Langer’s last victory on PGA TOUR Champions, his 47th; he is the winningest player in PGA TOUR Champions history; and he keeps breaking his own age records each year.

Team Duval, Team Harrington and Team Singh tied for third, five back.

Although the father-son, mother-son, father-daughter, grandfather-grandson, ever-inclusive PNC would never be described as cutthroat, it made sense that the two teams that pulled away were led by both the most prolific PGA TOUR Champions winner, Langer, and Woods, whose 82 PGA TOUR wins are tied for most ever.

“For us to have that experience together,” said Tiger Woods, who was still beaming as he congratulated the winners. “I know we didn't win, but it was the fact that we competed. No one really made a mistake out there. We had to earn it, and that's what you want to have. Hats off to Langers. They played amazing.”

Charlie, 15, got much of the attention, as he has every year since his first PNC in 2020. And he delivered a slew of great shots under pressure.

A sophomore at The Benjamin School in Palm Beach, where he plays on the golf team, he at times put his dad on his back. He holed most of the putts and made two straight back-nine birdies on his own ball in their 13-under 59 in Round 1.

In Round 2, it was Charlie who kept Team Woods in the fight just as much as his father. It was Charlie who chipped it close and converted the birdie putt on 13 to stay even with Team Langer, and Charlie who made birdie on his own ball at the 15th hole. And it was Charlie who hit his approach to 6 feet on 16 after Bernhard had come within inches of a 2. Of course, the kid converted the putt.

Seemingly automatic from short range, Charlie also got it up and down to birdie the par-5 18th hole with Team Langer having hit the green in two to set up an easy birdie.

And on the first extra hole, it was Charlie whose ball lipped out for eagle, setting the stage for Langer to end it. If winning is a habit, Team Woods had run smack into the one team led by as habitual a winner as Tiger himself. (Well, almost.)

“It's in our DNA,” Bernhard Langer said. “Tiger plays to win, and they needle each other, him and his son, and his son is playing to win, and so are we.

“It’s what we are out here for, right?”

The 2025 PNC Championship can’t get here soon enough.