100TH WESTERN OPEN

July 5, 2003

Rich Beem

Q. You started early this year missing a lot of cuts. Are you back?

RICH BEEM: I'm not too sure I went anywhere. Just because you start a little bit -- given my past history, yeah, my career has kind of been like that. It's been a little frustrating.

I've made five or six cuts in a row with the Masters, didn't have a very good U.S. Open, and at the Buick, I really didn't play well there, either, but actually I've been playing pretty good, hitting the ball good. I started making some putts this week. I took a nice lesson back home with my putting.

Q. What's the difference in the way the course is playing?

RICH BEEM: Actually it's been the same all three days. The course is in great shape, the setups are fantastic. The course has been the same exact same for three days, so it's been easy to judge shots up there.

Q. (Inaudible).

RICH BEEM: Obviously if Tiger keeps playing the way he is, no, there's no way, but he's done it in the past. Maybe somebody can shoot 63 or even 62 and maybe he'll shoot even par. Who knows what he's going to do. He's obviously hitting the ball fantastic and obviously playing fantastic, so I don't know what's going to happen.

Q. Is it frustrating having such a good round (inaudible)?

RICH BEEM: No, you can't do anything about it. That's why we're all out here playing. Sometimes in the past when he was creeping up the leaderboard and a guy had the lead, if you keep watching the leaderboard and keep watching him, you can't do anything about how he's playing. You've just got to play your game. I wouldn't say it's frustrating.

I'm ecstatic about my round today. I look at the leaderboard and it looks like he got off to a rough start, 6-under after 7, I bet he was a little mad he wasn't 7 after 7 (laughter). He's obviously on his game, so you just sit back and watch him.

Q. (Inaudible).

RICH BEEM: That's just it, you said it, confidence. I hit the ball fantastic, I got the bad breaks in the back nine yesterday. I hit the ball great, so it's just confidence, get out there knowing you can shoot a low score and actually doing it. It'll be fun again tomorrow. Who knows?

Q. You talked about maybe not playing the PGA. Is there anything you'd like to do, try to accomplish by then so you can really enjoy that time off?

RICH BEEM: Yeah, I'd like to win this tournament and the British Open. That would be a start. I'd like to play well going into it. It's not like I'm going to quit the game once the baby arrives. I've got to take a little time off and make sure that my wife is doing well, and then I'm pretty sure she's going to get tired of me being around and screwing everything up and she'll kick me out of the house to go play golf again. I'm looking forward to it, but it's not like I'm going away forever. I don't really have any goals.

Q. Can you talk a little bit about what an experience it was for you, how much helps winning the PGA helps facilitate stuff like that?

RICH BEEM: You win one tournament and all of a sudden you get celebrity status and you can pull a few strings. That's pretty cool. No, it was fun. I got to go meet the Dave Matthews Band. I love their music. They're awesome, and I got to hang out with some of the band members for a couple hours and kind of see what they go through on a weekly basis. They're kind of nomads like we are, kind of chasing it out there. It was fun, though. It's always nice to have those perks because a lot of people would kill to go back and meet them, and these guys are falling all over themselves to meet me, so it's very cool.

Q. Did you make any changes early this year?

RICH BEEM: I make changes every week. Where do you want me to start? I change equipment all the time, I change putters all the time. Right now everything is dialed in pretty well with wedges and drivers and things like that, but there's no difference between this year and the years before. I'm sure I'll tinker again. Why not? It's like Christmas out here every day. If you don't like Christmas you don't like being on the PGA Tour. It's all free. Six of those, four of those, five of these. It's a pretty good gig we've got going on.

Q. (Inaudible).

RICH BEEM: He's just the head coach of New Mexico State University, a University golf course.

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