Rising To The Occasion
Rich Beem's PGA Championship win, his second impressive performance in three weeks, begs the question: Is he Tiger Woods' newest rival? Or the next Wayne Grady?
Beem, attacking the 15th hole, didn't hold back Sunday, closing with a 68 to prevail under major pressure.
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CHASKA, Minn. -- The on-site victory party was vintage Rich Beem, if there is such a thing. A bowl of pretzels, a bowl of peanuts, a can of mosquito repellent and an undisclosed number of adult beverages on the caddie terrace outside Hazeltine National GC, not some jacket-and-tie dining room. To further commemorate the occasion, a couple of Beem's buddies brought an honorary guest -- a three-foot statue of Jack Daniel, previously under detainment at a nearby liquor store.
There was just one thing missing: the winner. When he finally sat down with his friends last Sunday night, his shirt untucked, his face on every network, his life permanently altered, Beem could not chase away the Pepto Bismol fast enough. "I started the week with a brand-new bottle and almost finished it this afternoon," he said. "I took a really, really big swig around 12:30 -- my doctor told me it was OK. He said you can't O.D. on Pepto."
Golf World August 23, '02
Try as we might, it would be equally difficult to overdose on golf tournaments as memorable as the 84th PGA Championship, a 72-hole joyride from which Beem and his pals fittingly rode off in a stretch limousine. In a Cinder Fella combination of John Daly's victory at the 1991 PGA and Bob May's 2000 playoff loss to Tiger Woods, Beem dodged a flurry of Tiger birdies down the stretch to beat Woods by a stroke, becoming the 12th man in 15 years to make the year's final major his first major title. "I am so flabbergasted by this," he announced. "You just have no idea."
Now $990,000 wealthier, with five years of fully exempt status (including all majors) and two victories in three weeks, the former stereo/cellphone salesman suddenly finds himself with a very appropriate name. Not since Daly has a player risen from obscurity so swiftly or redefined his career in such glowing terms. Not since Daly has golf's competitive upper class been so hysterically undermined. After winning the Kemper Open in 1999, Beem seemed to go out of his way to cast himself as another PGA Tour one-hit wonder -- a player of ample talent whose ambitions never rose above the first floor.
It all made for great copy at Hazeltine. With Woods lurking all weekend but never leading, with Fred Funk campaigning to succeed Jesse Ventura as governor of Minnesota, with Justin Leonard looking to re-establish himself as the ultimate shotmaker in a power hitter's world, Beem became the stray dog nobody wanted to see leave. One of his better lines came Saturday evening when he was asked about playing in Sunday's final pairing with Leonard. "If I go to bed tonight thinking about it," Beem said, "I'm not going to get any sleep no matter how many pills I take."
After moving into the picture with a second-round 66, Beem retold his story as the accidental tour pro: "I was working up in Seattle [making $7 per hour at Magnolia Hi-Fi] for about a year and watched Paul Stankowski win the [1996] BellSouth Classic, and that kind of fired me up about playing golf again. I didn't have much success on the mini tours and decided to go back to El Paso CC, where I worked for the better part of 2½ years.
"That's when the head pro, Cameron Doan, came in one day and said, 'Rich, you have two choices. Either you're going to quit here and go play golf for a living or you're just going to have to quit.' I was really not a very good assistant pro. I finished eighth at Q School in '98 and here I am, still at it. I can't believe it."
‘I'm sure he had cotton mouth all day, but I think he just needed to see that he could handle the pressure.-- Sara Beem’
Bill Eschenbrenner, the head pro emeritus at El Paso who still counsels Beem on his swing, confirms that the kid was one of the shoddier assistants in club history. "He didn't mind [running down] the ladies golf association from time to time," Eschenbrenner said. "He didn't make a whole lot of friends there. He wasn't into running the mixed member-guests."
Thus, imagine the irony of Beem winning the major championship hosted by the national organization of club pros -- that's like adding Warren Harding to Mount Rushmore. The catch is that Beem is long on charm and honesty, incapable of arrogance and highly unlikely ever to take himself too seriously. "It didn't take more than five minutes to tell he was a genuine person," said his wife Sara, who met Beem on a blind date in October 1999 and married him last December. "I'm sure he had cotton mouth all day, but I think he just needed to see that he could handle the pressure."
There was plenty of it to go around. Beem began the final round three strokes behind Leonard, who appeared uncatchable while firing a back-nine 33 in Saturday's boisterous conditions -- steady winds of 25 miles per hour with gusts in the 40s. On a firm, fast golf course where shaping and trajectory meant far more than length, the little Texan was in his element. "I felt like my play today was better than the British Open in '97 or the Players Championship in '98," Leonard said, not sounding like a man with anything ominous in his rear-view mirror.
Woods, meanwhile, was puttering along, rolling his ball better than at any time all year, five strokes behind Leonard but burdened by a deceptive piece of history: He'd never won a major in which he trailed after 54 holes. That stat would mean a lot more if Woods hadn't collected those eight majors. Asked about his chances Saturday night, Tiger didn't go out of his way to complicate things. "All I have to do is play well, make some putts," he said. "It's really no big secret. There's only a few guys ahead of me."
