Despite winning seven times in 2017 on the PGA Tour Champions, Bernhard Langer failed to win the Charles Schwab Cup.
Kevin Sutherland played spoiler on what was almost assured to be another season of the Bernhard Langer show on the over 50 tour. Sutherland shot a final-round 66 to win the season-ending Charles Schwab Cup Championship by one shot over Vijay Singh. Because he entered the week 5th in points, the win meant he automatically won the season-long Charles Schwab Cup.
What made everything even more interesting is that this was Sutherland’s first win on any tour since his lone PGA Tour title at the 2002 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship.
Langer’s seven wins this year included three majors and each of the first two events in the three-week postseason run. Langer had 16 top-10s and 21 top-20s in 22 starts this season.
Despite all his success, it’s the first time since 2013 that someone other than Langer won the season-long trophy. This is a byproduct of a system set up the exact same way as the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup. To ensure excitement all the way until the final event, anyone in the top five headed into the Tour Championship can automatically win the Cup with a win in the final event.