home

jobs

	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

FUNAI GOLF CLASSIC AT WALT DISNEY WORLD RESORT

October 20, 2005

Rich Beem

LAKE BUENA VISTA, FLORIDA

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Thank you, Rich, for joining us for a few minutes here in the media center at the Funai Classic. Great finish.

RICH BEEM: I did.

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Why don't you just talk about your day. You were pretty much the first one out, right?

RICH BEEM: Not pretty much, we were the first ones out, yeah. It's always nice to get out in front of everybody, play fairly quickly, me and Gamez, and just nice to get out there and play at a nice comfortable pace instead of having to wait around all the time. It seems to be unfortunately standard fare out here on the Tour. I got out there, played at a comfortable pace, and our amateurs were fantastic, picked up when they weren't in the hole. Actually we could have played a little faster if Robert and I would have played halfway decent on the front nine. On the back nine we made a lot of putts finally. It's nice to get out there on the fresh golf course, fresh greens. Actually the greens were perfect for 18 holes, so it was a great day.

Q. Is it fair to say you've always been a streaky player; would you agree with that?

RICH BEEM: Pretty sure my track record speaks for itself on that question (laughter). Yeah, I have. Actually in the past it's just because my putting has kind of either carried me through the week or it's kind of let me down through the week, depending on which week it has been. This year was absolutely horrific.

I finally looked at my stats after the British Open, and I was 201st out of 203 guys in putting. I'm not going to beat anybody like that. So I went to a completely different putting style and found some newfound hope.

You know, I've still missed the cuts in a few spots, but my putting has been consistently better. It's not as good as I'm hoping it's going to get to, but it's certainly carrying me through a couple of times. Like I made a nice putt on 17 and 18 today coming down the stretch, where earlier this summer there would have been no chance, at least I didn't think so anyway. So my putting is the thing that's kind of really helping carry me along; although I didn't miss a single green today, so I can't really say that my putting was all. The reason I played well is I gave myself 18 chances today, which is all you can ask for.

There's a style of putter called the hammY putter, and it's that same style. Actually the funny thing is last year at this tournament I saw the putter for the first time, and I'm under contract with Callaway/Odyssey, so I went ahead and told them to send me one and said, hey, can you send me something like that.

Anyway, they made me a couple of putters like that, and I worked with it a little bit last off season, but honestly I didn't have the guts to try it. I'm like, there's no way, I can't do this, I can't do this.

And finally after the British Open I played so bad, and I was putting horribly at the time. I said, I've got to do something. I went back and I worked with it, I had two weeks off, and I started putting better. Yeah, split grip, right hand is lower than left probably by two, three inches maybe, and just kind of feed it in the hole somehow.

It's just kind of a fresh approach for me, and I don't know if I'll stay with it forever, but right now it's working. It just kind of gets me freed up in my mind, which is, as we all know, helps out more than anything else.

Q. (Inaudible).

RICH BEEM: Yeah, I'm about to get lipo (laughter).

Q. Throughout history golfers have been penalized, DQ'd for signing incorrect scorecards. I'm just wondering in the Internet age, do you think that rule is a little archaic now?

RICH BEEM: Actually there's a guy I played golf with on Monday. I played with a guy who's a member of the R & A on Monday. Everybody knows what we shot, on the Internet, TV, everybody. But the rules of the game are you've got to sign your scorecard, and it's not that difficult. I mean, to be honest with you, I think the instance where it happened at the British Open a couple years ago, I don't think that's fair. I think you ought to be given your opponent's scorecard, not your own, but that's how they do it over there, it's a little bit different. You're in charge of your own scorecard and it's not that difficult to write down 18 numbers in a row about what you shot and then sign your scorecard, double check it, end of story. There's been some tragic instances in the past, but I don't think it's archaic. I think it's part of the game, and you ought to be able to do that.

Q. What about some of the other rules like the direction you take a drop?

RICH BEEM: There's so many rules, we can sit here and talk about rules but we're not going to because it's silly and I'm going to go eat here soon.

There are some rules out there the funny thing is that the rules are made by guys, the governing body, USGA, and I'll say it out loud, a lot of these guys can't break an egg, they're not players. They don't understand the rules they have in place, or some of them are outdated and some of them don't make common sense. Like the rule that happened to me at the PGA where I swept debris on the green but I was only this far off, but yet if you're on the green you couldn't do it. So they changed that rule, so that's my rule, I'll take credit for that.

There's a lot of rules that don't make sense. But that's what they like to do. They like to sit around and drink scotch and come up with new rules or old rules and don't want to change them, I don't know. It's their prerogative, man.

Q. You talked about the whole new approach with the putting. Is that because of the change in putters, or were there other changes you made or adjustments putting wise?

RICH BEEM: As far as I mean, just the change in the putter. I went from standard and then last year I went to cross handed, just thinking that might get me a little more consistent. Jim Furyk is probably one of the best putters we have on Tour. And finally just nothing was going in the hole, and so I had when I worked with those putters last winter, when I first used them they felt fantastic. But then the more I got out there, the more I doubted myself and was questioning it. It was like I can't do it, I can't do it, there's no way. I've got to figure out some other way.

I couldn't figure out some other way. The long putter I didn't feel it, the belly putter doesn't feel horrible. This is in between; it doesn't anchor to my body so it's not going to be outlawed any time soon. It's just a fresh approach. I open up my body, my stance, I see the lines better, I feel like I can hit the ball down the line better. My speed has gotten better. Some days it's better than others, but overall I think I'm just a much better putter, more consistent than I ever have been.

Q. Is there anything else that you work on with putting as far as that keeps you in sort of a groove?

RICH BEEM: No, I actually just I'm starting to work with a good friend of mine, Paul Brilliant. We're just trying to keep it simple more than anything else. Like I said, it's been my Achilles heel. The thing is I used to be a great putter, an outstanding putter in college, and all of a sudden it's just like I put too much pressure on myself out here. We change grasses all the time, going from bentgrass, Bermuda, whatever, but for whatever reason I haven't been nearly as consistent as I used to be.

This just kind of makes me feel, I don't know, like I said, kind of takes a little bit off my brain. I'm not the world's greatest thinker, I'll admit that, and the less I have to think, the better off I am. This does that. I don't sit there and think about my stroke. If you watch me, I don't take practice strokes. I look at my line, think about the line, get a feel for my speed. Sometimes if I have a longer putt I'll take a practice stroke. I'm not focusing on my stroke, I'm focusing on how hard I want to hit the ball and on what line, and that really seems to be simple to me. There's only two things I've got to do, so I'm not jacking around making sure the putter head goes straight back and straight through. I'm trying to hit it on the right line and speed. That's all I'm working on.

Q. When did you first start on that?

RICH BEEM: That was The International, my first week, and I putted well there. I missed a couple of short putts. It's still a process trying to get everything dialed in, but the more in fact, I just went to a round grip this week instead of the paddle style because I'm trying to get my left hand a little weaker so it sort of hinges on my left hand and my right hand controls it. Small changes here and there, but it's basically been the same putter since The International.

Q. Take this in the spirit it's intended, but was a five year exemption in some ways a slightly double edged sword for you because it took so much pressure off?

RICH BEEM: I'd be going back to Q school last year if it wasn't.

Q. You've always been characterized as a pretty easy going guy, rightly or wrongly. That's been your public persona. Maybe you grind harder, maybe you put the

RICH BEEM: I focus a little better, I don't know. I don't think that anything bad came out of the five year exemption. In fact, I wish it was ten years, to be honest with you, for selfish reasons.

No, I mean, I think that I attribute some of my poor play to having a lot going on in my life. You know, I won when I was 32, young, newly married, didn't have any kids, didn't have a house payment, didn't have just free and easy. All of a sudden, my wife, we have a baby, and we moved to Austin, Texas, now just had our second child, so there's been a lot of changes happen over the last couple of years that in some ways I was ready for and in some ways I wasn't. When it all kind of hits you in the last two years, all these changes, you kind of go, whoa, what did I get myself into here.

They've been changes for the better, and I wouldn't change that for the world, but I don't necessarily think that if I didn't have the five year exemption, you know, things would be any different. I mean, they might be, but I don't know. I certainly have enjoyed everything that's come with it, you know, having the ability to play when I want to and when I don't want to, I go home and spend some time with my kids. The funny thing was I asked my caddie last week, what do you think, do you want to go play the next couple of weeks, I'm kind of tired; we could take the last two weeks off. He said no, let's go play, let's see what we can do down in Florida for a couple of weeks. I was like, okay, let's go, fine.

No, I think five years, like I said, I wish I had ten.

Q. You said that you went to Callaway to get this putter made. Is it just something they cobbled together literally?

RICH BEEM: Yeah, they actually no, but they had to do a little modification to what they had, actually just took a standard head and then had to take a blow torch to a shaft and make the right bends and this and that. It's kind of a I'll say it's a piecemeal kind of a putter, but it's got little bangs and bruises. It's not brand new and shiny, but it works.

Q. Is there a marketing opportunity for you there should this thing take off?

RICH BEEM: Not for me, for Callaway and Odyssey there is, absolutely. It's just a different concept type putter, and I think that it's very simple. Whether Callaway and Odyssey want to run with it is kind of their prerogative. I think it's kind of brand new. Wasn't Annika the No. 1 putter on the LPGA this year? I think she was, and she was for a long time. But obviously it works for her, so no reason why it can't work for me. I'm not saying I'm going to be No. 1, but I'd damn sure like to be a little bit better than 201.

Q. You said you hit 18 greens today. Is that an uncommon occurrence?

RICH BEEM: Oh, I hit them all the time (laughing). No, the last time I struck the ball this good is probably in Atlanta when I finished 2nd when I lost in a playoff. That week I hit 49 out of 54 greens in regulation. I've been working on my ball striking a little bit, made a few changes to my swing, nothing earth shattering.

No, I just get in a groove out there. The course is playing fairly benign, but I also drove the ball extremely well. When you hit it in the fairways out here, you're going to give yourself a lot of opportunities.

Basically no wind today; the course was playing pretty easy. Tomorrow the course is going to be a lot different, playing the Magnolia instead of the Palm. I don't know what to expect over there except hit it as hard as you can off the tees and see if you can't get lucky. We've also got ball in hand, as well, and that takes some of the mud off it. The first hole I had a big glob of mud and I was able to wipe it off and hit my second shot. If not, who knows what would have happened.

Q. Has there ever been a stat that you went to look at and were surprised that you were that high or that low?

RICH BEEM: A couple years ago I finished 10th in driving distance, and I think that that was before they had that was when they had the alternating the two shots, so basically every time I stepped on one of those tee boxes I tried to hit it as hard as I could (laughter) because it counted. No, I mean, the putting I've always known, and I've struggled. I've worked hard on my short game, sand play, because I used to be horrible at that.

Q. (Inaudible).

RICH BEEM: I guess it is tied into it. Something that's kind of amazing to me is the proximity. Now they can say each bunker shot, like for Luke Donald I read it was like five feet. Every time he hits a bunker shot he hits it to five feet. Holy cow, he should be 100 percent. Of course there's those times where you hit it to four feet and you miss the hole. There's so many different stats you can look at these days.

The two that I'd like to improve on is basically driving accuracy and putting. If I could hit a few more fairways, and I know it's going to help out the greens in regulation, but the putting, at the end of the day, if you putt well, you're going to play well. I think that's the bottom line.

Q. Which stats out there lie?

RICH BEEM: Which stats lie? Driving distance is huge. You know, the driving accuracy sometimes lies because you hit it this far off the fairway you know, the driving or the greens in regulation because you could be a foot off the green or a foot off the fairway and you miss the fairway or you miss the green. So yeah, I mean, you get I guess most of the stats kind of lie to a point because putting stats, you can miss 18 straight greens, this far off the green and you'll have 18 one putts, or less than that. Everything doesn't tell the entire truth maybe, just look at stats. The only stat that matters out here is money, and we know that. That's the only stat that really matters out here. That's one stat I'd like to improve on, never mind. Screw the driving accuracy and the putting. I want to improve the one stat that matters (laughing).

End of FastScripts.

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297