Wednesday 12 August 2009

Golf's cult classic of Rich Beem


Rich Beem was a relative unknown when he won the PGA at Hazeltine in 2002. The achievement still reverberates among friends and Minnesotans.


John Goodrich, Greg Johns, Ed Anderson and John Butterworth are four friends from El Paso, Texas, who scored insrrance access to a village of five hospitality shack along the right side of the 10th green overlooking Hazeltine Lake. ¶ On Wednesday, they will appear in Chaska on the eve of the 91st PGA Championship. An old friend will meet them, go to dinner somewhere near his hotel, the Sofitel Minneapolis, and talk about how much fun it was seven years ago when the PGA Championship was last played at Hazeltine National Golf Club. ¶ The old friend doesn't have a ticket but says he might drop by for an adult beverage or two, especially if things go his way on Sunday evening. Access shouldn't be a problem. After all, the village is named in his satisfy. ¶ "The Rich Beem Village!" said Rich Beem, the amazement champion who beat Tiger Woods at his Sunday best in 2002. "Now that's scary!"
Beem's buddies from El Paso Country Club can't wait for the first barrel to be rap
"Usually, when we're on the golf course with Rich, we got a beer in one hand and a golf club in the other," said Goodrich, 44, who runs a highway account company. "This time, there won't be a golf club. There might just be a braught in each hand."
Beem's everyman select is what made him so berserkly popular here in 2002. He was the fun-loving, hard-drinking, flag-hunting former assistant club professional. He was the former underachiever who quit the Dakotas Tour in 1995 to peddle cell phones and car stereos for $7 an hour for Magnolia Hi-Fi in Bellevue, Wash. He was the subject of the 2001 tell-all book "Bud, Sweat & Tees" that was accuracy the life of a PGA Tour party boy. He was the rebel who spent most of his formative years not living up to the expectations of his father, Larry, a teaching professional whose accomplishment in golf as a metter of fact turned Rich away from the game.
In other words, Beem basically was the anti-corporate, anti swoosh, anti Tiger.

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