Champions Tour Insider: What if they had match play?

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Bernhard Langer (left) and Hale Irwin squared off at the 1991 Ryder Cup at Kiawah Island on the final day.

Bernhard Langer vs. Jim Thorpe.

Or how about a rematch for the ages: Langer vs. Hale Irwin.

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It's whimsical, of course, but wouldn't it be fun if the Champions Tour had a match play championship of its own like this week's World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship?

In a 32-man bracket based on the current Champions Tour money list, some of the opening round matches would have Langer, the top seed, playing against No. 32 Jim Thorpe. No. 2 seed Loren Roberts, winner last week at The ACE Group Classic, would open against Lonnie Nielsen, and Mike Goodes, Allianz Championship winner, would draw Eduardo Romero in the first round.

The match possibilities as the tournament moved along would be intriguing, led by a potential rekindling of that historic Ryder Cup showdown on the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island in 1991 -- Langer vs. Irwin.

Langer and Irwin were the central figures in that Ryder Cup. The veteran multiple major championship winners were entrusted by their respective captains -- Dave Stockton of the United States and Bernard Gallacher of Europe -- with the anchor roles. When Langer and Irwin arrived at the 18th hole on the Ocean Course, the Ryder Cup hung in the balance.

Langer needed a final-hole par 4 to defeat Irwin, even the team match at 14 points and retain the trophy which Europe had won four years before at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio. Two years earlier, Europe had retained the Ryder Cup with a 14-14 deadlock at The Belfry.

After conceding Irwin's bogey putt, Langer went about the business of trying to make his par. The German missed the six-foot putt and the U.S. escaped with a 14 ½-13 ½ triumph. Years later, Langer would reveal, without any attempt at using it as an excuse, that he over-played the break to avoid a spike mark on his line.

Fast forward to today. Irwin is the winningest golfer ever on the Champions Tour and Langer, the 2008 Player of the Year, is currently the tour's most dominant golfer. That's enough right there for a compelling match but history tells us there is so much more.

Nearly two decades after the 1991 Ryder Cup, Langer's missed putt remains one of the most memorable moments in golf history. There is a reason for that. Match play produces unforgettable images. The allure of the hand-to-hand nature to the format is irrefutable. Besides, match play isn't a staple of modern professional golf. We don't see it but once a year on the PGA TOUR at the Accenture, plus the biennial team events, the Presidents Cup and the Ryder Cup. So when something of note happens, the memories don't easily fade.

There are other reasons why a Champions Tour match play event would be riveting.

1. Twelve of the 32 golfers who would qualify for Champions Tour match play this year based on the current money list have appeared in the Ryder Cup a total of 44 times, led by Langer's 10 appearances, seven each by Tom Kite and Mark James, and four times by Irwin.

2. Langer, Kite, James and Ben Crenshaw have been Ryder Cup captains. Irwin was the U.S. captain at the inaugural Presidents Cup. Think there wouldn't be some marvelous anecdotes about golf history in those pre- and post-match interviews? It's a safe bet that a few other past captains -- Tom Watson, Curtis Strange, Lanny Wadkins and Hal Sutton -- would move into the top 32 on the money list as the season goes on.

3. The unpredictable nature of the format in which higher seeded golfers are often beaten. Even Tiger Woods, a match play wizard throughout his amateur and professional career, has been knocked out in the first round at the Accenture Match Play Championship.

Woods calls it the "fickleness of match play" when a golfer can shoot 79 and advance while another might shoot 69 and go home.

Masters champion Trevor Immelman is another who loves the vagaries of match play.

"It's man-on-man, team-on-team," the South African said Tuesday at Accenture. "That's what sport is ... I think match play is easier for the fans to relate to, and it's a nice change. I would love to see this two times a year."

So why not once a year on the Champions Tour? Who wouldn't want to see Langer-Irwin again or a match featuring Crenshaw and James, the rival captains in 1999 at the most contentious of all Ryder Cups in Boston?

Champions Tour Insider Notes:

• Langer has been named Champions Tour Player of the Month for January/February. In the process of posting a victory and two third-place finishes in three starts, Langer, with 525 points, has built an impressive lead in the Charles Schwab Cup. Loren Roberts has 305 points, followed by Mike Goodes with 304.

• Roberts's victory Sunday made him the fifth two-time winner at The ACE Group Classic. He joined Lee Trevino (1990-91), Mike Hill (1993-94), Hale Irwin (1997,2002) and Gil Morgan (1998, 2001). In addition, Roberts became the third golfer -- Irwin and Morgan are the others -- to win the event on different Southwest Florida courses.

• Florida has been good to Roberts, who now has won five times in the state. The victories: the 1994 and 1995 Nestle Invitational on the PGA TOUR and the 2007 Boeing Championship at Sandestin, plus the two in Naples.