Bland has multiple goals in sight after Senior PGA win | LIV Golf

Now that he has a fresh experience of the winner’s circle, he would dearly love to replicate that as soon as possible while he senses that the Cleeks are ready to celebrate their first LIV Golf team victory after a couple of recent near misses.

“I’ll keep playing LIV Golf for as long as I’m good enough to compete and I can hold my position,” the 51-year-old Bland said while preparing for Friday’s opening round at the Golf Club of Houston. “Whether that’s a few more months to the end of this year or if I can get maybe another two more years out of it, we’ll see. After that, I don’t see a huge amount. But right now, I’m fully focused on LIV and the Cleeks, trying to do well here in Houston.”

Renowned for his consistent play and his rock-solid game from tee to green, Bland has kept his LIV Golf playing privileges for the past two seasons by finishing in the top-24 Lock Zone. He is currently ranked 25th at the halfway point this season.

He will tee off at the Golf Club of Houston energized by his fairytale debut in the over-50 ranks just two weeks ago, having won the Senior PGA Championship at Harbor Shores in Michigan by three strokes after closing with a superb 8-under 63. On Tuesday night in Houston, the Cleeks team got together for dinner to celebrate that victory.

“Winning is always great,” Bland smiled. “You kind of learn new things about yourself, how you handle yourself. We all make mistakes, and usually that costs us the chance of winning, and you learn from that, of course, but I think you also can learn from winning … what kind of mindset you were in, what frame of mind you were in, what you did well, what you didn’t do well.

“It will just make you better for the next time you’re in that position. It doesn’t mean to say that you’re going to win the next one, but it just gives you a little bit more calmness that if you are in that situation again you know you can handle it, that you can do it. It gives you the best opportunity to do it again.”

Cleeks captain Martin Kaymer, a former world No. 1, believes that the LIV Golf League’s team environment has played an important part in Bland’s growth as a successful golfer.

“We have a very good team spirit and we all get along really well,” said Kaymer. “I think Richard is a people’s man. When you get to know him really well, he likes to be in a team environment. Playing practice rounds, going for dinners together, really helped his spirit, besides the game of golf. We don’t really have that when you play on the PGA TOUR and the European Tour. You travel a lot more, and you are on your own quite a lot. This environment here, I think it helped his golf a lot.

“I played with Richard last week, and he said, ‘It helps me so much to play every single week against Bryson (DeChambeau), against Jon Rahm, Dustin Johnson, those guys. Back in the day, I only saw them maybe once or twice a year and played against them. Now I need to bring my “A” game every single week, and that drives me to really grind it out every single week.’ That was also part of his success, that he knows he needs to give everything he has.”