DUBLIN, Ohio – Officials of the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday announced today that the Captains Club has selected two-time Masters winner and World Golf Hall of Fame member Bernhard Langer as the 2027 Tournament Honoree.
Langer, 68, is the 88th person selected for the prestigious award at the Tournament golf legend Jack Nicklaus founded in 1976. The German native will be honored on Wednesday, June 2, 2027, at Muirfield Village Golf Club.
“I first met and played with Bernhard in an exhibition in Munich when he was 16 years old,” Nicklaus said. “He showed a lot of promise then, and I followed him as he grew into becoming a world-class player. Bernhard has had as long and as successful a record of winning as probably any player who has ever played the game. It’s fantastic to watch him continue to compete at the level he plays. We are delighted that we have the opportunity to honor him here at the Memorial Tournament in 2027.”
Born August 27, 1957, in Anhausen, Bavaria, Germany, Langer has enjoyed a career marked by his tenacity and longevity that enabled him to amass 65 official worldwide wins including Masters titles in 1985 and 1993. He still is an active competitor on the PGA TOUR Champions, the over-50 circuit on which he has captured a record 47 wins.
Langer grew up in a family of modest means. His father Erwin had been a motorcycle courier in the German Army in World War II and had been captured by Russian troops near the end of the conflict in 1945. En route to a prison camp in Siberia, Erwin leapt from a moving train and escaped. “The Russian troops were shooting at him, but it was dark so they missed him,” Bernhard Langer said in a 2015 interview. “Had one hit him, there wouldn’t have been a Bernhard Langer for sure.”
Bernhard is the youngest of three children. His father worked as a bricklayer and his mother, Walburga, was a waitress. As a toddler, Bernhard almost died from a severe fever, but once he recovered, he grew into an active child who enjoyed skiing among other athletic pursuits. He was seven years old when he found his way into golf after watching his brother, Erwin Jr., go off on his bicycle to the local golf course five miles away to work as a caddie. Bernhard soon did the same and then quickly fell in love with the game, learning with a meager collection of four clubs he shared with his brother.
Langer was 15 when he turned professional, but his career in golf was in jeopardy when he suffered a back injury at age 19 while training as a member of the German Air Force. He suffered stress fractures and bulging discs from marching with a 30-pound pack and rifle and spent six weeks in the hospital. “It was a tough time, and I remember thinking I probably wasn’t going to play golf again,” Langer recalled.
Once recovered, Langer pursued the game as a teaching professional and then turned his energies to tournament golf. He qualified for the European Tour—now the DP World Tour—in 1976, and it took him four years before he earned his first victory in the Dunlop Masters. Later that year, he won the Colombian Open on the South American Tour. He is one of five men to win tournaments on six continents, joining Justin Rose and past Memorial Honorees Gary Player, Hale Irwin and David Graham. Langer’s 42 victories in Europe, highlighted by five wins in the German Open, is second all-time to Seve Ballesteros, despite battling the putting yips on and off in his career.
Langer won the European Tour’s Order of Merit, in 1985 and 1993, which correspond to the years of his two biggest career victories in the Masters Tournament. Making just his third appearance at Augusta National Golf Club in 1985, Langer won his first green jacket after shooting consecutive 68s on the weekend to post 6-under 282 and defeat Ballesteros and Raymond Floyd by two strokes. Eight years later, Langer broke par all four days and posted 11-under 277 en route to a four-stroke victory over Chip Beck.
Prior to the 1986 Masters, Langer became the first man in golf history ranked No. 1 in the world with the introduction of the Sony Ranking—now known as the Official World Golf Ranking. His reign lasted three weeks until he was overtaken by Ballesteros.
Langer is credited with 126 professional victories that includes his remarkable record of 47 wins on the PGA TOUR Champions, the tour for golfers 50 years and older. Langer won his first senior title at the 2007 Administaff Small Business Classic with an eight-stroke victory over Mark O’Meara and his last, to date, is the 2024 Charles Schwab Cup Championship. He surpassed Hale Irwin’s record of 45 senior titles with his 46th victory at the 2023 U.S. Senior Open at the age of 65, making him the championship’s oldest winner. Langer also has finished runner-up on the PGA TOUR Champions 43 times.
On twelve occasions Langer represented his home country in the World Cup, and he was a stalwart for Europe in the Ryder Cup, going 21-15-6 for teams that won five times, including an historic victory in 1987 at Muirfield Village Golf Club—the first European win on U.S. soil. Langer went 3-1-1 in helping Europe to a 15-13 decision over a U.S. team captained by Jack Nicklaus. In 2004, Langer served as the winning European captain at Oakland Hills Country Club near Detroit.
Langer was elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2001 but deferred his induction until the following year. He also was inducted into Germany’s Sport Hall of Fame in 2016. Among other honors he has received include Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for his contributions to golf, the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Silver Laurel Leaf, the highest German sports award.
Langer and his wife Vikki reside in Boca Raton, Florida. They have four children: Jackie, Stefan, Christina and Jason.
The 52nd edition of the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday is scheduled for the week of May 31-June 6, 2027, at world-renowned Muirfield Village Golf Club.
For more information about the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday, please visit thememorialtournament.com. For the latest news and updates on social media, follow the Tournament on X and Instagram at @MemorialGolf and on Facebook at Facebook.com/theMemorialTournament.
About the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday
The Memorial Tournament presented by Workday is held annually at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus. The Tournament, founded and hosted by Jack Nicklaus, is conducted each year with three goals in mind: to honor the memory of individuals living and deceased who have distinguished themselves in the game of golf; to showcase the world’s best golfers competing on one of the most challenging venues in the world for the enjoyment of spectators; and to benefit many Greater Columbus Charities in alliance with the Nicklaus Children's Health Care Foundation, Nationwide Children's Hospital, Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation and numerous other local organizations. For more information, visit www.thememorialtournament.com or call 614-889-6700.
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