![]() The highlight reels that evening affirmed Beem’s effortless charisma, his bravado on the big stage, and his impromptu victory jig on the 72nd green once he had sealed the deal. I had urged myself to make my best swing of the day right there, and that’s pretty much how it turned out. “Thankfully, it was much calmer on the final day, I had the honour, pulled out the seven-wood I had used on that tee all week, put the tee in the ground and hit as fast as I could. “On 16, nobody in the field, not even Tiger, felt comfortable with the tee shot – especially when the wind was howling on Saturday. Yes, I was nervous throughout the final round, as I had been for most of Saturday, but it didn’t feel overwhelming until I got to the 18th, when I’ll admit that every fibre in my body seemed to be shaking. ![]() “That 75-yard walk from green to tee helped me out quite a bit. That’s when it suddenly hit me, the thought that the only guy out there who could screw things up was myself. It wasn’t fully up to date, so when I strolled to the 14th tee I actually thought I had a six-stroke lead with five holes to play. “When I made birdie on 13 there was a huge leaderboard right in my eyeline, I just couldn’t miss it. I just don’t reflect on it as me beating Tiger. Finishing on top of the leaderboard was all that mattered, who finished second was not that big a deal to me. ![]() I was playing with him in the last pairing, so he was the man I needed to beat that day. “I just thought it was funny and laughed it off, and when I look back on that final day, I think of it as me beating Justin Leonard rather than Woods. At that time, Tiger was World No 1 and it wasn’t really close, and he might have been thinking, ‘What in the hell is this guy thinking, or saying, or doing?’ “I do remember walking by Tiger on the practice range pre-round and I said: ‘Hey Tiger, good luck today, play well.’ He didn’t really say anything back! It wasn’t because it was Tiger, that was just me being me, I’d have said the same to anyone. “I’m aware that some folks make a big deal out of it, and that’s fine by me, but I was never really thinking about Tiger in that final round,” he explains, recalling that he began his Sunday three shots behind overnight-leader Justin Leonard, whose 69 in howling winds on day three was one of the rounds of the year – small consolation for his closing 77. Yet Beem, now 51 and an established part of the Sky Sports Golf commentary team for the past few years, has always been keen to play down such an achievement. There are only a handful of golfers who can say they’ve taken on the Big Cat in his prime, at the business end of a major, and come out on top. “I still have the deposit slip in my house somewhere,” says Beem, who snatched a one-point victory over Steve Lowery at The International, enjoyed a week off, and then stunned Hazeltine by holding off a rampaging Tiger Woods to etch his name onto the Wanamaker Trophy. Ahead of what will “probably” be his final playing appearance in the PGA Championship at Southern Hills, the memories of his major breakthrough 20 years ago are still clear and vivid.īeem can even recall his Tuesday practice round at Hazeltine – although who would forget playing in a fiveball with John Daly, Fuzzy Zoeller, Robert Gamez and Pat Perez?īut just as easy to recall was his time as the club pro at El Paso Country Club in 1998, when success was winning $100 in a Friday match to ensure a weekend of nice dinners and cold beer.Īnd then, in his sensational August of 2002, Beem went to his bank to pay close to $2 million into his account.
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