He missed the first six of 2011.īeem tied for 15th in the Texas Open this year at TPC San Antonio. He missed all four cuts, including two on the Nationwide Tour, in his return last fall. I'd swing the golf club and have no idea where it was." "It was like learning how to play golf again," Beem said. He played nine holes for the first time 10 weeks after the operation. He went eight weeks without taking a golf shot. He underwent surgery after last year's Houston Open to repair a bulging disc in his back. Lately, Beem has been on a search to find that pleasure again. We owe something to the fans, in showing them we really enjoy what we're doing." "The thing about me and this game I love is: It should be fun," Beem said. Beem's joyful jig on the 18th green became instant lore. The world knew exactly who Rich Beem was after that week at Hazeltine National.īeem won the 2002 PGA Championship in Minnesota despite an electrifying Sunday surge from Tiger Woods. Sports Illustrated writer Alan Shipnuck wrote a book about Beem called "Bud, Sweat & Tees: Rich Beem's Walk on the Wild Side of the PGA Tour." It was published in 2001, which in retrospect seems prophetic: In 2002, Beem swept The International two weeks before the PGA Championship. The weekly magazine Golf World asked in a headline: "Who in the world is Rich Beem?" He won the Kemper Open as a 28-year-old rookie. Hayes, a friend in El Paso, won on the PGA Tour in 1998, Beem decided to try Q-school. He returned as an assistant professional at El Paso Country Club. He left golf briefly to sell electronics in Seattle. To be able to do it for 13 years now is absolutely remarkable."īeem played college golf at New Mexico State University and plied the mini-tours in the 1990s. "I never expected to play golf on the PGA Tour. Beem joins members such as Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, Ben Crenshaw, Tom Kite, Judy Rankin, Lee Trevino, Kathy Whitworth and Babe Didrickson Zaharias. "I figured there's no chance in the world I'm getting in," Beem said.īut he and six other people will be inducted tonight at San Antonio Country Club in a ceremony that also will put Fort Worth's Colonial Country Club in the Texas Registry of Historic Golf Courses. A three-time winner on the PGA Tour, the 41-year-old Austin resident had made just four cuts in 23 tournaments since returning last fall from back surgery. The call from Reid Myers, the hall's executive director, came as a delightful surprise. Rich Beem was practicing at UT Golf Club when he learned he'd be in the Texas Golf Hall of Fame.
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