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CHILDREN'S MIRACLE NETWORK CLASSIC PRESENTED BY WAL-MARTNovember 6, 2008Rich BeemLAKE BUENA VISTA, FLORIDA MARK STEVENS: On the Magnolia course, and he is currently 139 on the Money List. Rich, if you'll just start off with some general comments on your thoughts coming into the tournament and your round today. RICH BEEM: Thoughts coming into the round, or the tournament this week were not much of anything. Played about six or seven holes practice round, that's about it, on one of the courses. Didn't have any desire to play golf. I'm burnt out. I'm tired of this year. I'm ready for it to be over with, and I go out and I shoot 65. You tell me how this game works. I played good today. I had a lot of fun out there, and I think that not playing the last few days really kind of helped out, just get your mind off of golf. I've been doing this for a long time now. I know what to do. I know what causes successful rounds and what doesn't cause successful rounds, and I finally was able to put together something halfway decent out there and have some fun. So I think not playing golf the last few days certainly helped out with what I was doing out there today. MARK STEVENS: All right. Questions. Q. Your last two trips in here previous to this year, one year -- I can't remember. You might have been in the final group. Were you in the final group? RICH BEEM: Yeah. Final group on Sunday. Q. Whatever year that was? RICH BEEM: I think, yeah. Q. And last year you came in and you won 20 something on the bubble. RICH BEEM: I was kind of pretty far ahead of the curve, though. I was like 121 or 120, but I was enough money ahead. Q. Where it was unlikely that you lost? RICH BEEM: Exactly. Q. Are those two different things, and how does this year compare to those in terms of pressure or perceived pressure? RICH BEEM: None. Q. Worse or are you just not thinking. RICH BEEM: No, honestly, I already have my game plan. I mean I know where I stand on the Money List, but I'm not worried about it. I know that if I don't keep my card, I'm going to have to beg for some sponsor exemptions because I'm not going to go back to Q School. It's just something that I don't think -- I just have no desire to do. So I'll just rely on the fact that I'm a past PGA champion, past major winner and the fact that I've been out here for ten years. I've gotten to know a lot of the tournament sponsors. I've gotten to meet a lot of people through the Pro-Ams over the years. So I'll use that as my avenue to get into events. So I'm hoping to bypass that. That's for sure. That was my goal going into this week, my goal going into the fall series. This is the last tournament, but it's still part of the fall series, so I still have a chance. Q. This is seven weeks in a row? RICH BEEM: This is six weeks in a row. Q. What's that been like? Hence the burnout. RICH BEEM: Hence the burnout. Yeah, you keep going and grinding so hard and you think this is my week, this is my week, and you keep trying harder and harder, and as we all know, the harder you try at this game or the harder you try at anything, sometimes it's just futile, so I didn't do anything this week. I literally played, I think, seven holes on the back side of Magnolia, or whatever tournament course that is where I played today, and that's it. Practiced for about an hour, you know, and hit some balls and that was it. So I mean I've been doing it a lot longer than six straight weeks in a row. So if I can't figure out what I'm doing after six weeks out here, I oughta be out finding something else to do. Q. Is your spot on the Money List, 139, does that represent how you played this year? RICH BEEM: No. Q. Do you feel you played better? RICH BEEM: Absolutely. I feel I played a lot better. I made six or seven cuts right there in the middle of the season, and I don't even think I made $100,000 during those six or seven events. If you're making six or seven cuts in a row, you need to be making 4 or $500,000. One of those weeks you should be lighting it up. So I've played better this year than I think I have in years past. I think I've been a lot more excited about it, and so where I'm at on the Money List has no direct reflection on how I feel about my year, by far. Q. This week is a reflection of how important the mental part of the game is. Being refreshed, relaxed. RICH BEEM: Oh, without a doubt. I mean I think that being successful in anything you do is more mental than physical, I mean with the exception of a weight lifter, maybe, where it's physical, or a Strong Man competition. I mean it's definitely more mental. So you know, it's just being able to have the attitude that you can do it no matter what. So for me, though, when I come to this week, honestly, it really doesn't matter. Granted, I want to finish in the top 125, but if I don't, I'm not about to go commit Harry Caray. I'm going to go home and relax and enjoy my month off. So I'm actually just looking forward to this week being over with and then being able to be done for the year, irregardless of how I finish. Granted, I hope I play well for the next three days and win, but who knows. Q. You didn't send in your check for Q School last year. What about Q School is so unappealing to you? I think I know what it would be. RICH BEEM: Well, here's my view on it, though. The funny thing is I did send my check for Q School this year, but in fact I just got it back this week. What good would it do me? Say I go through Q School, say that I win. Okay. Granted, that means I can probably get into a number of events and not have to write letters, but then again, I'm still not going to get in some of the events. I'm still going to have to write a letter. So why not just bypass the situation? I know tournament directors; I know, like I said, corporate sponsors. I know a lot of people. Why go through the trouble? I don't want to sound like I'm being cocky about it, but to me I don't think it's going to make a big difference. I'm still going to get in X amount of events, irregardless, so to me it just didn't make much sense. We talked about it, my caddy and myself, we talked about it and kind of asked a few guys, but we just came to the determination it's really not going to help us. We're still going to be able to get in as many events as we need to and want to. Q. It's kind of a whole new ticket to the end of the first free shuffle, isn't it? RICH BEEM: Basically. That's about right. So if I go in and say I do win it and all of a sudden I don't make any money in the first five or six events, what does that mean? Bumpkis. So to me it didn't make any sense, go out there for eight days and beat my head against the wall, no thanks. You got a bunch of kids who are hungry, want to be out here, and they're going to be out there grinding it. If I go out there and make two double bogeys in a row, I might walk in. Q. Does winning the PGA does that give you five years into the PGA as well? I'm just wondering because next year it's at you-know-where again. RICH BEEM: No. PGA is lifetime. Q. So you've got that one nailed down? RICH BEEM: Yeah. And I can still qualify for the U.S. Open and British Open just like I did this year. So I can still pull in three out of the four majors. I can figure out if I can win, I can get in the Masters and I can get in one of those major championships and I won't have anything to worry about for the next five years. It's gone the other way. I've seen the highest of the highs back in 2002, and now everybody's worried about me losing my card. I'm like, you know what, this is me. I'm not worried about it. Do I look like I'm really freaked out about not making my card? No way. Q. You won the major, which the sponsors like, and you've always had a great personality. Everybody likes Rich Beam. RICH BEEM: Most people like. (Laughs). Q. Do you see some of these younger guys -- I don't want to say you work the system, but you made a point to get to know the sponsors and get to know the guys in the Pro-Ams. Do you see some young guys who don't have that status that you have who could fall back on this? Do you think some of these guys get that? RICH BEEM: No. I don't think they get it. Q. Do you see some guys who don't work it that way? RICH BEEM: Two things. A, some of the guys probably don't have the avenue to work the sponsors as much as I have over the past ten years, you know, being paired in a lot of Pro-Ams and actually getting to know and actually making phone calls and showing up and asking to be in Pro-Ams and things like that. And secondly, I don't think they're taught to do that. I don't think they understand that the relationships that you develop at these Pro-Ams through -- even the Monday Pro-Ams that these guys can play in, that carries over. They're looking to play the Monday Pro-Am for a thousand bucks, just to see the golf course and help with some expenses. That's fine. That's dandy, but if you get to know these guys you're playing with, they might introduce you to tournament sponsors, tournament directors, anybody that runs a tournament, that's another avenue. They say, okay, I'm this kid and I want to play in this event, and then they can write letters later on and hopefully get in. I've been there and done that. Peter Jacobsen was probably the best all time at it. Brad Faxon, Billy Andre, Scott McCarron. You take the time out. You go do the right things. You say hi to the sponsors. You thank them, thank the tournament directors. You get to know these guys. Like I said earlier, I'm an American just like everybody else in this tournament. I think we've all had a fairly tough year out there. I'm no exception of what I do, so just because I have to go ask somebody for a handout, so to speak, I'm not embarrassed by that, not even remotely. Q. You were already in sales before golf anyway. (Laughs). RICH BEEM: Brother, it's pretty simple talking to folks, man. It's pretty simple. Q. Was that something you learned from somebody else or is that something that just came natural to Rich Beem? RICH BEEM: What, learn how to talk? Q. Yeah, well -- RICH BEEM: Learn how to talk is pretty, yeah, about three years old. No, you just learn how to deal with people, you know. I can't say that I'm always comfortable in a room. Certainly I get uncomfortable in certain situations, just like everybody else, but you know, when you're there for a purpose, and you know, you're supposed to be doing something, I'm not afraid to talk to people. That's part of the gig. That's part of what we do. We're entertainers. Granted, I'm out here fighting for my job. Sometimes this is not so entertaining to me, but at the end of the day, yes, we are entertainers. But there's a lot of times where I don't like to go do things with certain groups, and if I don't have to, I don't, but if it comes to going to a cocktail party or a function for a tournament sponsor, I know what my expectations are, and it's pretty simple. I'm going in there, and I'm going to meet a lot of people. They're going to ask me to do my dance. They're going to tell me about jumping on the car. They're going to ask who the biggest jerk on the PGA TOUR is and what my favorite course is. I can go down and tell you the Top 10 questions they're going to ask me, and you answer those ten questions and you're good. It's a pretty simple deal. But you gotta do it. That's part of the gig, you know. That's one that people don't see. This is what we do. Q. Who's the biggest jerk on the PGA TOUR? RICH BEEM: Me. Q. How is the course playing today and at what point did you start having fun out there? You came in burnt out. RICH BEEM: I had fun standing on the first tee box, to be honest with you. I think the more birdies you make out there, a lot more fun it becomes. I think that's pretty easy to figure out. But I just got out there and got into a nice rhythm, but once I saw a couple putts go in that were maybe a little unexpected, certainly on my Back 9 today, I saw couple putts go in that were unexpected. But that's what happens when you're not completely -- you're not into it so much that you just can't quite seem to let it go. So I was able to let it go today a little bit and have some more fun out there, but I must say sometimes that's the hardest thing to do because you're out here and you work so hard every single day and you just forget that, you know what, you gotta let it go and just go out and play golf. That's what it's all about. Q. How is the condition of the course? RICH BEEM: Condition of the course is perfect from tee to green. It's absolutely fantastic. The greens are running great. The bunkers are good, fairways are tight. So you gotta strike your ball fairly cleanly, but the golf course is playing great. Q. Anything else to you, in that the Mag usually plays a shot and a half or two -- RICH BEEM: Not today, though, because they had the tees mostly up. They only had one tee back today, No. 5. The long holes that they've lengthened, 5, 9, 17, even 18, 16, they played all those up. They played all those up, and even some of the par 3s were more in the middle instead of back. So it wasn't playing -- it was playing fairly benign. I think it's going to be about the same as Palm over there. I'm sorry. Is that Mag? I played the Mag. Q. Could you kind of briefly analyze your game this year. What was the difference between what kept you -- you're 139th in money. What kept you there as opposed to being higher or winning like we're used to seeing you do? RICH BEEM: Just one stray round out of four. One round would be kind of indifferent. You know, I'd have three rounds under par and one at even par or over par, you know, and you just can't make any money that way. It's just always one stray round, and for me it was probably my short game that let me down more than anything else, but I -- you can point it out to a bad break here or this and that. It's just one or two strokes the entire tournament, and that adds up in a hurry out here. Q. Did you get a lot of gut for bailing at the British from anybody? Did they rag on you for that? RICH BEEM: No. The only writer that asked me about it, and he's actually a friend of mine and that didn't really bother me, was Doug Ferguson. Doug asked me about it, and I told him the honest answer. I think the commentators on TV and the guys from the R & A kind of ripped on me a little but. But here's the way I look at it. I'd probably played about four or five events in a row going into that, hadn't really been back home, hadn't seen my family in about three weeks, and I'd gotten over there and I was extremely tired. It was howling. It was blowing, the whole nine yards. And basically, I probably spent at least 10, $12,000 of my own money to get over there and back, so if anybody wants to give me some grief, hmm, really not going to make much difference to me. At least I'm not like some of the players. Some of the players didn't even -- there's a lot of guys on the European Tour that didn't even try and qualify for the U.S. Open. There's a lot of guys that didn't even try and qualify. Funny thing is I qualified for it. I paid my own money. I went over there. I was having absolutely no fun whatsoever and I walked off. Q. Did you play the morning the first day? RICH BEEM: I don't even remember. Sometime mid-morning. Q. The sideways rain early the first day. RICH BEEM: It was brutal. Absolutely the worst conditions ever. I wasn't playing any good. I'm not going to win, not going to make the cut. I get a chance to get oughta here and go home, I'm doing it, save me an extra two days, and I'm glad I did it. MARK STEVENS: Any other questions? Q. Six years ago now, heading back there again already. RICH BEEM: Seems like it, yeah. It feels like it, there's no doubt. Q. Doesn't seem like yesterday in some sense? RICH BEEM: No. There's been a lot of hard days between then and now. MARK STEVENS: Thank you, Rich. End of FastScripts |
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