In 1982, Lehman turned professional. It took Lehman many years to become a leading
tour professional. He played on the
PGA Tour with little success from
1983 to
1985 and was then obliged to play elsewhere for the following six seasons. This included time on the
Asia Golf Circuit and
Southern African Tour and on the second-tier
Ben Hogan Tour in the United States. He regained his PGA Tour card by topping the Ben Hogan Tour's 1991 money list, and enjoyed unbroken membership of the PGA Tour from
1992 until shortly after he joined the
Champions Tour. He was named
PGA Tour Player of the Year in
1996. From 1995 to 1997, Lehman held the 54-hole lead at the U.S. Open, but each time failed to win. During this period he won his only major championship to date,
The Open Championship in
1996. In April 1997, he was #1 in the
Official World Golf Ranking for what would be only one week. He has won five times on the PGA Tour, but in addition to his Open win these wins have included the season-ending
Tour Championship and
Memorial Tournament, and he has won at least nineteen professional events in total. Although Lehman did not win a lot of tournaments on the PGA Tour he was one of the most consistent players on tour with 19 runner-up finishes between 1992 and 2006. Unusually for a star American golfer, Lehman won almost as many regular tour events internationally as he did in the United States. His most well-known victory was at the 1996 Open Championship in England. He also won the 1993
Casio World Open on the
Japan Golf Tour and the 1997
Gulfstream Loch Lomond World Invitational on the
European Tour. He also recorded runner-up finishes at the 1989
South African Open and the 2000
Scottish Open, the European Tour event he won three years previous. Lehman was captain of the
Ryder Cup team in
2006, which lost 18½ to 9½ to Europe at the
K Club in
Ireland. In April 2009, Lehman became the 13th
Champions Tour player to win his debut tournament. He teamed with
Bernhard Langer to win the
Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf in a playoff over
Jeff Sluman and
Craig Stadler. On May 30, 2010, Lehman won the
Senior PGA Championship in a playoff over
Fred Couples and
David Frost for his first Champions Tour major championship. In 2011, Lehman topped the Champions Tour money list and was voted the
Champions Tour Player of the Year. He is the first golfer to win "Player of the Year" honors on all three tours operated by the PGA Tour. In June 2012, Lehman defended his title at the Regions Tradition, to win his third senior major championship. He won by two strokes from Germany's
Bernhard Langer and Taiwan's
Lu Chien-soon. In his next major appearance at the
Senior Players Championship, he finished runner-up, two strokes behind
Joe Daley. ==Personal life==