AUGUSTA, Ga. -- It took a trip through Amen Corner for Bernhard Langer to find religion.
In 1985, the German won his first green jacket at Augusta National, used Jesus' name in vain in his champions' interview at Butler Cabin, then had an awakening days later at a Bible study in Hilton Head, South Carolina. In 1993, he won his second Masters on Easter Sunday at the mother church of American golf.
"This tournament was more meaningful to me than most people know, even in a spiritual sense," Langer, 67, said Friday.
He spoke in past tense because a bogey left him on the wrong side of the cut line in his 41st -- and final -- Masters as a member of the field.
When Langer walked off the 18th green Friday, it marked the end of one of the most storied careers in Masters history. His first win came when the 27-year-old from a village of 800 people became just the third international champion after South Africa's Gary Player and Spain's Seve Ballesteros, followed by a second green jacket eight years later in 1993. There were seven top-10 finishes, including one in 2014, and he finished under par as recently as 2020, tying for 29th at 3-under.
Langer's longevity survived a golf equipment revolution: Langer is the last player to win a major playing with a persimmon driver.
John Daly won the PGA Championship at Crooked Stick in 1991 gripping and ripping it with a Kevlar-headed Cobra driver, and Jose Maria Olazabal would win the 1994 Masters with a (relatively) huge TaylorMade metal driver in the bag.
The images of Langer's past glories inspired a fit of nostalgia. As part of Langer's farewell to Augusta, the Champions Tour, where Langer has dominated since turning 50, posted a video of Langer first showing off the driver he used to win 32 years ago, the Texan, by the Texas Golf Co. Then Langer showed off the most special club in his collection, inspired by the win.
The last player to win at Augusta with a Persimmon driver.
Bernhard Langer shows off his driver from the 1993 Masters. pic.twitter.com/8AijFQNzvY
- PGA TOUR Champions (@ChampionsTour) April 9, 2025
"They gave me a unique gift," Langer said. "Their owner hand-painted this for me. It's one of their drivers, and it represents 'The Last Supper,' so this is Jesus with the 12 disciples. Hand-carved. Very unique piece."
Nearly 2,000 miles away in Jalisco, Mexico, Dave Wood was stunned.
Wood is a bit of a renaissance man. He grew up in Hollywood, California, the son of a golf pro and teacher, and went to California Institute of the Arts, one of the most prestigious visual arts programs in the country. He was recruited to the University of Houston to play golf, but quit after one year and graduated from the Glassell School of Art in Houston instead. He was still an excellent golfer, and he started merging all of his interests by experimenting with club design. Soon, he found mentors in legends Jackie Burke and Jimmy Demaret, two Texans who both won the Masters.
The result was a new company: the Texas Golf Co., and his innovative driver, the Texan.
"I was the first company to put degrees of loft on clubs," Wood said. "Every club you'll see in the pro shop today has had that on there."
Wood met Langer at Riviera Country Club in 1984, and they hit it off. As a competitive player himself, Wood was one of the only tour equipment reps who spoke the players' language. There were no launch monitors back then, so Wood found it easiest to dial in his product by getting feedback from his friends, stars like Seve Ballesteros and Greg Norman. Before Bryson DeChambeau had robots to help him search for micron levels of precision, Wood was out there on the cutting edge the hard way.
And, he said, Langer's testing methods were the most regimented.
"Bernhard used to send his caddie to the end of the range and they had a signal program," Wood said. "I mean really good German engineering here. If the ball landed and then hopped left and released, he would have a hand signal back to Bernhard to let him know what was happening."
Soon after, both of their careers took off.
Demaret and Burke started sending players to see Wood. Soon, Phil Mickelson and Ben Crenshaw started getting clubs made, including the Texan that Mickelson used as an amateur to win his first PGA Tour event, the Tucson Open in 1991. And in the early '90s, Wood made one for Langer, too.
In 1993, Wood was at Augusta from Sunday-Tuesday, but then had to fly to Japan. While there, he watched, at midnight, as his friend won the Masters with a club he built.
"If he'd have failed, I would've broken a Japanese television set," Wood said.
He wanted to make something -- for himself and Langer -- to represent what the achievement meant. He knew Langer was a devout Christian; he knew to always watch his language around the German. So he set out to create a Texan with a carving of "The Last Supper" in it.
"Leonardo da Vinci was always one of my inspirations," Wood said. "After Bernhard won at Augusta, that to me was the objective. I couldn't have a greater challenge."
He worked on the special driver for six months, figuring out how to deal with the "porosity" of persimmon grains, and how to do an engraving that followed the complex curves of the head of a driver. When the piece was finally completed, he couldn't wait to give it to Langer. He forgot to even take any photos of his creation.
So when Wood got a text this week from an old friend in the golf business with the video featuring Langer, he couldn't believe that Langer highlighted the gift. It brought back three decades of memories, of a life in golf, and now, the end of an era with an old friend taking his last loop around the track.
"It looked just like I remembered it," Wood said from his home in Mexico. "It was exciting that it's still important to him, that of all of the trophies -- he's one of the greats -- that he's won, that he spends time with it."
Wood watched Friday as Langer wore green slacks as an homage to his 1983 win. The fans gave him standing ovations all over the golf course. Wood watched as he birdied the 12th and pulled even, like Amen Corner was going to save him again. Langer faltered with a double bogey on 15, and another bogey on 18.
"Coming up 18 was mixed emotions because I was still inside the cut line, and even when I made bogey, I wasn't sure I'm totally out of there or not because I actually thought 3-over would make the cut," Langer said.
But he just missed it by one shot, after a putt on 18 went millimeters from dropping.
Knowing when to walk away is especially difficult in golf. Langer is the winningest player in the history of the PGA Tour Champions, crushing those sprightly 50-somethings deep into his 60s. But on the right day and the right track, he can still beat competitors half his age. (Or less. Just moments after Langer finished at 3-over, 28-year-old Will Zalatoris tapped in to finish the second round at 8-over.) The end can be delayed for a long time. For the great ones, deciding when to walk away is a matter of faith.
Langer has stayed in incredible shape despite an Achilles injury suffered during training last year. And he was this close to becoming the oldest player to ever make the cut in a major. Sam Snead made the cut at the 1979 PGA Championship, also at 67. But Langer said he didn't merely want to make it to the weekend.
"I want to be in the heat," Langer said. "I want to be on the leaderboard. I want to have a chance to win. On this golf course, I don't feel I can win anymore."
Langer's playing partner, the amateur Noah Kent, averaged 322.6 yards off the tee Thursday and Friday. Langer, on the other hand, averaged 253.3 yards per drive. Not exactly pole position.
"I'm hitting such long clubs into these greens, where I can't stop the ball where I need to stop it," Langer said. "It's a golf course designed to be hit with medium to short irons. The greens are so severe."
To compete, Langer had to miss in all the right spots and get up and down again and again, using all the lessons he'd learned over his 41 years of competition on Alister MacKenzie's masterpiece. But he managed to do that well. So well, in fact, that as he played his rounds, he questioned if he'd made the right call in deciding not to return next year. But now, he says, he's at peace.
He came off the 18th green, with his son Jason on his bag, to greet his wife, his four kids and two of his grandkids. "There were lots of emotions flooding through my mind the last two days as I was walking down the fairways," he said. "Friends from all over the world, literally, were walking a few holes with me. It meant a great deal." An old friend in Mexico could relate. Wood's "Last Supper" tribute to Langer was also his own proverbial Last Supper.
"That was the last persimmon golf club that I personally made," Wood said. "I didn't know that at the time. That's the way life is, though."
Wood watched every shot of Langer's on Friday, saying he couldn't recall being more invested in a round of golf.
"This is it," Wood said afterward. "The end of our era."
Masters announcer Jim Nantz, who has called the tournament since 1989, called Langer "one of the great players in the history of this tournament."
But Langer pondered that legacy himself in his final appearance in the press center after four decades. "How will they remember me? Hopefully, you know, as a good golfer. But hopefully also a man of faith."