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THE BARCLAYSAugust 23, 2007Rich BeemHARRISON, NEW YORK NELSON SILVERIO: Rich, thanks for spending a couple minutes here with us. Great way to start. How about some comments on your opening round. RICH BEEM: What kind of question is that? Be a little more assertive. Say, "Come on, Beemer, tell me about that!" NELSON SILVERIO: "Rich Beem, 7-under par, Westchester Country Club, fabulous opening round. I'm sure you're very excited about it." RICH BEEM: Ecstatic; I'm gonna. It's a good day, I drove it especially well. I don't know if I missed any fairways out there. On this course, if you keep it in the fairway you've got a good shot at playing well. As I was telling somebody else, it's funny we had a 20-minute delay and we were joking around but my putting stroke felt horrible until about 20 minutes to go and then all of a sudden I just started working on some things, tempoed the stroke a little better and started rolling it really good. You know, I just saved a couple of good pars the first five or six holes. Then after that long putt, the putt that I made on 17 for birdie about ten feet away, that really kind of helped my confidence a little bit and what I was trying to work on. Then the one on 18 was just, who knows how wide it went, I'm just glad it did. I rolled it really good the rest of the way in. I couldn't be happier with how I putted the ball, especially on these bumpy greens. Q. Do you feel like you took advantage of the conditions today? RICH BEEM: Hard to believe that I didn't, shooting 64. Yeah, I'd say that the conditions were very optimal for scoring today. Q. This is obviously an important week for you at number 134. Have you ever been in this situation before of being -- coming down to a last tournament? RICH BEEM: No, this is actually -- you know, the thing about the Playoffs, even though a lot of people don't understand, I think the general public still doesn't really understand what the Playoffs are all about. But I tell you what, there's a lot of guys in this tournament who know what the Playoffs are all about, the guys No. 121 through whatever it is, we all know what the Playoffs are all about. If I don't play well this week, I have to take a vacation which I don't really want to take. I want to play well this week and I want to play in Boston and I want to play in Chicago. Chicago is my favorite tour stop and I have to play well to get in, and I have to play well to get in next week, so it has my attention. Last week was where a lot of guys kind of sat there and said, "Oh, I guess I'd better start playing better. I've got to get in the Playoffs." It's got the players attention and that's a good thing, it's got mine. Q. In this sport, it seems a little harder to just flip the switch. RICH BEEM: It is. But the nice thing about it is I feel like I'm playing as well since the British. I don't think my track record shows up but I've played extremely well at the British and felt like I hit the ball fairly decent at Reno. Just wasn't a very good week for me. PGA Championship I played extremely well except for a few holes on Thursday. Then I played pretty good last week but then I just didn't make enough birdies to shoot 22-under. You know I've been playing pretty good which is nice but it's still hard. You know, it's in the back of your mind because you're always trying to go out and win a golf tournament. You know you've got to play well enough to get in the next week, and it's actually kind of fun. Q. How many in a row have you played? RICH BEEM: I think this is my fourth. So hopefully I can play seven in a row or six in a row. Heck, hopefully I'll play seven in a row and hopefully something really fun happens and I can make it to THE TOUR Championship. You know, I've got to play well this week so I've got an opportunity next week. Q. Do you still stay frosty between the ears playing that much, you personally? RICH BEEM: You know, it's hard. Q. Keep your edge. RICH BEEM: A little while back, Kenny Perry was saying, you want to stay out here as long as you can if you're playing well until you're playing badly and then it's time to go home. I'm playing well so I want to be out here, I don't want to go home. So that's probably the best way to keep my edge. Q. Since you know you're 134, have you gone the extra distance and looked to see exactly what you might need to get to Boston? RICH BEEM: Point-wise? Q. Yeah. RICH BEEM: No, not really. I haven't gone that far. I just know that I'm 134 and I need to make it to 120. I think maybe later on in the weekend, if I'm in contention, then I'm really not going to think about it. Then it's going to be an afterthought because being in contention to win a tournament, that will solve everything. But if it comes down to it, if I need a low round on Sunday that there's a few guys ahead of me that I need to pass, that might dictate some of my play. Right now I don't know the point separation but I know that I'm 14 spots away. Q. Didn't get a chance to talk to you after you nearly witnessed history with Tiger at the PGA. What was watching that show like for you from inside the front row? RICH BEEM: Motivating. It was unbelievable. I mean, I think the reason I'm playing as well as him is just the fact that I was able to watch that and watch him play golf. I think the one thing that doesn't get verbalized to the golfing public is how he actually plays golf. I mean, he hits the ball fantastic, he putts the ball fantastic but he plays golf so well. He hits the ball where he's supposed to, the right trajectory, right spin, right everything and he does that on every single shot. You don't see him trying to play to the fat of the green unless that's the only shot he has. He's always trying to hit a specific target with specific height, a specific amount of spin. He's trying to play a golf shot. He's not trying to make a swing. He's not trying to do anything. Even though you see him working on his swing, I don't think he's really working on it; he's working on his swing to hit a particular shot and that to me is the most amazing thing. To me, it was awesome to watch. You sit there and watch somebody like that play golf, hopefully you don't get too wrapped up into it but you learn. I learned a lot by watching what he did and how he played that round of golf because it never looked like he was going to shoot anything but 63, you know, with the exception of the putt lipping out on 18. That's what he should have shot. It's not like he got lucky here or there. He got everything he needed to get. Q. Kind of wish that putt would have gone in so you could have been there for the lowest round ever? RICH BEEM: I told him, we were walking up 18, I said, "Why don't you get this one, too, because you've got every other record in the planet." Then Stevie Williams goes, "Yeah, that's what I keep telling him." (Laughing). Q. Were you keeping his card that day? RICH BEEM: I don't remember. I don't remember if I kept his card or not to be honest. I don't think so. I think I had Bob's card -- well he signed my scorecard so, no, Bob had his card. Q. You could have pulled a Boo on him. RICH BEEM: But he probably would have caught it, though. Q. Rory has made a lot of news headlines this year. As a peer, what is your take on him? How well do you know him? RICH BEEM: He's been that way -- we went to qualifying school together and he's been that way ever since I've known him. He's very confident in his ability and what he's capable of doing. I have to hand it to him, he backs it up. He's played awfully well. Saying that you want to take on the No. 1 player in the world, dive right in. But you'd better -- you'd better bring it, and then some, right now, because watching Tiger close hand -- it was pretty funny. I was playing a Pro-Am yesterday and some guys were asking me about Tiger. I said, "You know, if I ever had to go to a golf tournament and be a spectator, he's the only guy to watch. I want to watch him go play golf. If he wasn't in the field, I would be sitting in the skyboxes just getting smashed watching it on TV. He's the only guy I would literally go out and watch becaus it's so much fun to watch him play golf." I think the guys that have the best chance of possibly catching him might be Ernie Els. I think his swing is so good and so fundamentally sound, he has the opportunity to. But going back to Rory, dive right in, but I'm certainly never going to say that, you know -- I'm not going to say anything about Tiger except for, "Nice shot", "Nice putt", "It's your honor." Q. One of the things Rory was asked towards the end of his deal, he said it's that much sweeter when you can beat the No. 1. Obviously you did that at a pretty good-sized tournament. For Rory is it any more bitter if you lose to him? RICH BEEM: I lose to him all the time. Doesn't bother me. You know, I think that you obviously want to beat him because I think it can't do anything but help your confidence. But also you can't stare at him and watch what he's doing. You have to play to your own game and play to the best of your ability. If you're out there and you don't learn something by playing golf with him, I don't see how you're not doing your job but I don't think you're very observant. I think anybody who plays with the greatest player ever -- ask some of the old guys back in the day playing with Nicklaus; you've got to learn from the best. I mean, who else are you going to learn from? Playing golf with the best player that ever graced the golf course, I mean, if it doesn't inspire you to try to harder or work harder or if you don't learn something from him, I think you're missing the point of actually playing with him. Granted, yes, I do want to beat him and I want to have the accolades of winning a golf tournament, beating him in a tournament, but I'm certainly going to go out there and compete at my highest level but I'm going to watch him. I'm going to see what he does better than I do and see if I can figure out how to maybe do that, incorporate that a little bit. But to say -- to be bold and brash and I'm going to go out and whip his ass, I don't think there's enough lunch pails in the world to bring. Q. When you started the last day at Carnoustie, you could be considered in the mix, I would think. RICH BEEM: Yeah. Q. Did you take anything good out of that, or is it more frustration at not finishing as high as you would like? RICH BEEM: I played well. In fact, I played with Tiger on Sunday there, as well. I played solid golf. I did a lot of really good things. I hit the ball solid. I didn't make a whole lot of mistakes, but I still made some mistakes. I made too many double-bogeys. But you know, I was right there, I was in the mix. I finished even par, 20th. It was kind of crowded up there, though. There was a lot of guys between 3-, 2- and 1-under par. I think Ben Curtis and Hunter Mahan had some good rounds to pass me the last day. Overall I played really good. That was more of a positive for me more than anything else. I finally played well in a major again I felt like, and that was fun. Q. Getting back to Rory for a second -- RICH BEEM: Oh, no. Just kidding. Q. He's so seemingly externally confident, wonder how many guys out here feel that same way but just have that governor in their head that say, don't say it out loud, or whether it's a small list of people who think in their own head they can play ball with that guy and basically poke the bear and play head-to-head with him the final round? RICH BEEM: I'm sure the top players, Phil, Ernie, Vijay, Retief, they all feel that they can compete with him and they do. They prove it on a weekly basis. You know, coming from Rory, obviously he's very good right now and he's been good for the last few years. I don't know, he's always been kind of outspoken and that's been his MO from the first time I ever met him. He's very outspoken and tells you what he thinks and the whole nine yards. That's not a lot of guys out here. I think a lot of guys out here are a little bit more reserved than him, especially when it comes to the media. There's not a lot of guys that are going to say to the media -- off the record probably a little different story but on the record, I'm certainly not going to say what's on my mind 100%. But give you a few anecdotes here and there. He doesn't care and that's good for him. I do care. (Laughter). NELSON SILVERIO: Thank you. End of FastScripts |
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