Evergreen Langer eyes record

Langer: fine form

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Bernhard Langer is aiming to make European Tour history in his own tournament this week.

The two-time former Masters champion is bidding to become the Tour's oldest winner at the age of 50 at the Mercedes-Benz Championship, a tournament he hosts.

The oldest current winner of a European Tour event is Irishman Des Smyth, who won the Madeira Island Open in 2001 aged 48 and 34 days.

But after 11 victories on his home soil over the years, the German is one of the favourites to win this week in Cologne.

Impressive

Despite missing several weeks of the season due to a kidney stones operation, Langer is in impressive form.

He finished second to Niclas Fasth in Munich and third behind Ross Fisher in Holland on his last two starts and also lost a play-off on the PGA Tour to Rory Sabbatini earlier in the season.

He also has course form, winning at Gut Larchenhof in 2001 with a 22-under-par total.

"Any victory would mean something special at this age as time is running out, so to win my own tournament would be an unbelievable feat," said Langer, who finished joint third in the KLM Open in Zandvoort the day before his 50th birthday.

But the event has attracted a quality field this week and Langer will have plenty of rivals for the £212,000 first prize.

Ryder Cup stars Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter and Colin Montgomerie will all tee it up, alongside US Open champion Angel Cabrera and two-time former US Open champion Retief Goosen.

The restricted-field tournament features just 78 players - those eligible being European Tour winners in 2007, players ranked in the top 75 in the world on August 13, the leading 60 players from the Order of Merit on September 3 and five invites. There will be no halfway cut.

It is also the final qualifying event for the Seve Trophy at the end of the month, with the last four places from the European Tour Order of Merit Points list to be decided this week.