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MASTERS TOURNAMENTApril 5, 2007Rich BeemAUGUSTA, GEORGIA JIM BLANCHARD: Ladies and gentlemen, I'm happy to introduce to you Rich Beem who carded a great 71 today. Rich is the 2002 PGA Champion at Hazeltine, winner of the 1999 Kemper Open. This is his fifth Masters appearance, and his best finish here, so far, is tied for 15th in 2003. But we are pulling for him to do even better this year. Rich, you want to make a few comments about your round, and then we'll ask for questions. RICH BEEM: I'm happy to be here, too. I've never known this was here. This is pretty exciting for me, too. Anyways, no, I really had a good day out there today. It was actually about as fun as I could have made it. I started off on the first hole and I knew the greens were running a little quicker on the practice green, but got up on the first hole, I hit a great drive and a beautiful 4-iron to the back right part of the green. Couldn't have had about maybe 30 foot, and it was literally about half an inch from going off the green after I hit my first putt. I mean, I ran it like 15 feet by and I'm going just, "Oh, no, this could be a really long day unless I watch out." I hit the ball good. I gave myself a lot of opportunities. When I didn't hit the ball good or missed the green, I missed it in the right spots it seemed like and I made the come-backers if I needed to. And I hit a couple, like I said, really quality shots, and I got rewarded for them. It was actually probably one of the funnest rounds. I've never really made this many birdies or an eagle out here. I really felt three birdies and an eagle out here for me seems like an awful lot. I have a hard time taking it lower than 71. I guess that's my low round here. It was fun. Boy, it's playing tough out there, let me tell you. It was fun. I had a good time. Q. Given the conditions and how tough it was out there, what did that 71, what did that translate, would you say, in another place? RICH BEEM: Hey, who knows, I'm taking 71 at Augusta National on Thursday afternoon. I'd certainly be in the mid 60s on a regular Tour course, but who knows, who knows. Q. You're standing on 1, did you know that the wind was going to be a bear, and how bad was it? RICH BEEM: I expected it with the cool conditions; waking up in the morning, hitting balls out there. I knew that -- we knew which direction it was coming out of, mostly north/northwest. Walking up and you see the tee is up front, you know, even if we don't, Augusta National knows that it's going to be blowing into you a little bit. They gave us a little bit of a reprieve there. I expected it to blow pretty good today. Like I said, I wasn't expecting the greens to be quite as firm or fast as they were today, a little different from what we saw in the practice rounds. But nonetheless, it's tough. Q. You've alluded to it a little bit, but could you just sort of describe why it's playing so tough today? RICH BEEM: Green speed. I mean, just the green speed alone. The green speed and the wind, those combinations, that makes it even tougher. And these greens, you have to have perfect line and distance for the ball to go in. Once you start factoring in some windy conditions, with these big slopes, it gets real interesting, real quick. Q. Could you take us through that nice ride through Amen Corner? RICH BEEM: Oh, man. It starts with No. 11? Q. Well, let's start with 10. We'll make up our own. RICH BEEM: Actually that's Dan Jenkins, he does 10 through 13. 10, I hit a good 3-wood downhill and I was in between clubs and thought I should hit six and caddie said, "No, I think you should hit 7-iron." Turns out it was the right club, but I blocked it and hit it in front bunker, I'm thinking no shot of getting up-and-down and of course I didn't. 11, I hit a beautiful drive, and I get the heebie-jeebies hitting that second shot. I always seem to push it out to the right a little bit; and thus, I did. I thought I hit a really good chip shot and just came up a little bit short and got it up-and-down from there. It really was a difficult fourth shot. Then No. 12, watched Bernhard hit a beautiful shot right in the middle of the green where the wind really wasn't blowing and Colin gets up and hits another beautiful 8-iron, going right at it, flies just in the back bunker and I'm going, "Oh, man." I got up, committed to an 8-iron, tried to hit it right in the center of the green, sure enough, pushed it right at the pin to three feet and made birdie there. 13, I've never played 13 well. I think I've made one birdie in the entire time -- maybe two, in the five years I've played here. I don't know why; that hole just gets to me. I've hit in the water so many times there. Today, I figured out a place where I want to hit it in the fairway. I'm not trying to bash it around the corner. There's a spot about 210, 212 from the front edge. I'm trying to hit it just in that area and that gives me a perfect look. The wind was coming back in our face, and the funny thing is I didn't really know how stiff it was blowing, because if I did, I probably would have laid up. Billy said it's 212 to the front edge, 14 more, 226. So I said, all right, let's just bash the 5-wood up there, and I did. It just cleared the front edge and rolled up there, 15 feet away. And Colin hit his third shot just outside of me, so I watched his putt break so I got a really good read off of that. It was one of those days where things are going your way. But like I said, I've never played 13 very good at all. I'm obviously happy. Q. What kind of cheer did you get down there and how many people did it wake up given how quiet it's been today? RICH BEEM: I think it woke up a few people. I got pretty good applause, but they are kind of so far away, as you know, they are not right on top of you. Everybody is very festive. A lot of nice yellings. Q. Given it's Thursday and the greens are so fast, what does it make you think about how they will be the rest of the week? RICH BEEM: I don't think they will get any -- I don't think they will speed up from where they are now. I think Augusta National does a fantastic job of monitoring the conditions out there, and I don't think that they will let them get too far away from us. Right now, though, they are about as good as you want them, and they are all you can handle, that's for sure. Q. The way you hit the ball and the way this course is, have you been thinking for years that you should be more of a factor here? RICH BEEM: I'd like to. My putting has kind of held me back in years past, but I've been really working hard at it. I think it really kind of came around today, which is funny because I've really been diligent working on it this week trying to get the pace of the greens down and trying to get comfortable; and I did. I came out this morning and they were a lot quicker and I'm like, oh, man, just hoping. I put it in perfect perfections today to attack and hit some of the putts. I gave myself probably as good of looks as I've ever seen out here, and I think part of that comes from playing golf here a couple of weeks ago. I played 63 holes in two days, and just kind of got comfortable with the golf course. That's one thing I haven't really been comfortable with, is around the greens, on the greens. That's something that I really felt kind of uncomfortable with, but not so much right now. I think if you ask any past champion or anybody that's had a lot of success here, that's the one thing that they understand about the golf course. They are comfortable around the greens and know where to miss it and where is the best chance. Q. That's why you came early? RICH BEEM: Exactly. Exactly. I just felt like I've been hitting the ball really well this year for a while now, and my putting is coming around and finally getting some confidence back with it. You're just trying to get comfortable with the golf course. It's a lot different when you play it outside of tournament conditions, but still, you get to look at it and see where you think some of the nuances are going to be. You learn where you can afford to get away with it and you can't. In my yardage book, like Payne Stewart taught me at the '99 PGA Championship, just go through and put big X's where you don't want to hit it; Big X, don't hit it. Q. On 12, how close did it come to going in, and how difficult was it to pick a club there, not knowing maybe what the wind was doing? RICH BEEM: It really wasn't close going in. It hit about 15 feet short and rolled up to about three. It was tracking pretty good, but I don't think it even enough distance it was going to go in. With that hole, you have to commit how far you want to hit it and hopefully you kind of guess right. I had a pretty good bead on it. We had 159 and I had hit a couple of shots in there during the practice round where I felt really comfortable with how far I was hitting. Really to me, it felt pretty good, so I just kind of went with that feeling. I really didn't try and sit there and ponder anything. Pick a club and hit and go. Hit-and-hope kind of. Q. What kind of expectations did you have coming in, and also maybe your expectations are not like a Tiger where you're expected to win. Is it easier to go out there and just play? RICH BEEM: Yes and no. I mean, because you have your own expectations, and obviously this is the first time in the media room so you guys don't expect much out of me, which is totally fine, but I put a lot of expectation on myself because I know what I'm capable of. I know I'm playing well and I know that I'm putting well. At the same time, there's a little bit of doubt out there and it's a hard golf course. It really is very difficult and you get out there and you want to play well so bad and sometimes it just doesn't work out. But I think that, you know, when the conditions get a little bit tougher, when we play harder golf courses, I think I tend to play fairly well. I don't play U.S. Open golf courses very well because I tend to get a little aggressive with the driver and if it goes in the rough you're hacking out sideways. They don't do it to you here. They give you an opportunity to go for it from all over the place. I applaud them on that. It gives everybody an opportunity to fire at it if they are brave enough. I'm usually brave enough -- not smart enough always, but brave enough. Q. How many fairways did you hit? RICH BEEM: I have no idea. Eight, nine, something like that. I don't know. Top of my head, probably eight or nine. Q. Having won the PGA, how much of going through that experience and pressure will help you here? RICH BEEM: When it comes down to the end of the day, it will probably help out with the anticipation of what's going on. But it's been a while. I don't remember if I can think back that far right now. (Laughter) But at least I have something to build on. You expect the No. 1 player in the world, Tiger, to be there Sunday, so you know you've got to contend with him amongst other guys. So you just -- it's tough to play your own game a lot of times, but essentially that's what you've really got to do, but easier said than done. I've done it before and if it comes down to it, hopefully I can do it again. Q. Were you disappointed that after winning the PGA, that you didn't win more after that? RICH BEEM: No, not even remotely. I would not take back anything that I ever did or not even remotely. I learned from it, and what doesn't kill you can only make you stronger. And I tell you what, some people thought that I should have played better, this and that, but they didn't know what was going on in my life; kids, changing cities we're living in, things like that. There's just so many things going on in my life and golf took a back seat. No, I don't feel remotely disappointed in anything that I've done. Q. How conscious were you of how quiet it was out there and that there were not a lot of birdie roars or anything? RICH BEEM: I was grinding so hard, I wasn't even paying attention to that. Sure, you want big roars to grow up. That's part of the lore about Augusta. Like I said, I wasn't really worried about what anybody else was doing. I was just trying to figure out where I was going to hit it next. Q. What shot or moment do you remember most from Hazeltine? RICH BEEM: From Hazeltine, probably the third hole that I played of the tournament at Hazeltine. Q. And? RICH BEEM: Oh, I didn't know you wanted more. I started on No. 10 and I bogeyed that hole and then barely made par on 11, and we got to No. 12. I hit my second shot just over the green. Pin was kind of front left and I hit it an awful chilly chunk wedge up there about 40 feet short of the hole and literally I'm standing over, looking at the putt kind of going through the motions thinking: "Won last week, next week is up in Seattle, I have a buddy up there; you can miss the cut, catch a flight up, shoot some pool, dinners," this and that, and all of a sudden I made it, and I made that putt. I'm like, "Oh, all right. Maybe I shouldn't be thinking that way." All of a sudden, I fought pretty hard the first day and things snowballed from there. But literally I remember that third hole. Everybody remembers everything else and I remember that third hole, "Man, I could catch a flight here soon." Q. Obviously you're in contention here, and conditions stay the same, what kind of score do you think would be a winning score here come Sunday? RICH BEEM: Boy, I don't know. Hopefully they won't stay the same. Hopefully even if it doesn't warm up, that's fine. Hopefully the wind won't blow as much, but I still think -- I'm not too sure anybody is going to get to double digits. I'd be surprised actually. But I could be wrong. Because it doesn't look like we're going to have any rain or anything like that to soften up the golf course, so it's going to play tough. Q. You talked about this at Riviera, but what brought golf back for you? RICH BEEM: It's time. It just time. With family and moving and changing sceneries and things like that. It just got time where I was ready to go play golf again. Not that I wasn't taking it seriously, but getting serious about it again and try and get better and really start working at it a lot harder. For a long time I was trying to put Band-Aids on my game and get from one week to another and hopefully make a nice check here and there. Finally it got time to get going again. I took three weeks off in the off-season, I went for three weeks up to Coeur d'Alene snowboarding and didn't touch a golf club. But that time away really lit the fire. I was already ready to go, but that time away really helped put me over the top. So ever since then, I've been out here really working hard every day I'm out here, which is actually a lot of fun. Q. About your practice round, who did you play with this week? RICH BEEM: Practice rounds this week, I played with a Japanese gentleman, Hideto (Tanihara), nine holes on Monday. Tuesday I played nine holes with Jerry Kelly, and then Wednesday I played all 18. Front nine I played with Fuzzy, which was so fun. And then last night I played with gentlemen, the guys from Sweden, Stenson, Edfors and Niclas Fasth. Q. Back nine sounded like more fun. RICH BEEM: Exactly. JIM BLANCHARD: Rich, thank you very much and good luck this week. End of FastScripts |
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