Rich Beem celebrates his victory in the 84th PGA Championship at Hazeltine National Golf Club Sunday. (AP photo) | ZOOM |

        CHASKA, Minn. — Rich Beem wasn't much of a cell phone salesman, and teaching golf for a living just didn't fit his personality.

        Those memories flooded his mind late Sunday afternoon, after Beem repeatedly made clutch shots and held off a furious charge by the game's best player, Tiger Woods, to end up winning the PGA Championship and the Wanamaker Trophy.

        “I don't want to ever forget where I came from,” said Beem, who still carries the ID card from a company in Seattle where he once sold cell phones for $7 an hour. “The jobs I've had served their purpose. They got me here. I never want to forget about hustling around trying to earn a $5 spiff on a $1 cell phone.”

        The PGA Championship title, earning Beem $990,000, a lifetime exemption from having to qualify for the tournament and a five-year exemption for the other majors, was the third victory of his improbable four-year career — and second in two weeks. Beem won The International (and $810,000) on Aug. 4, surviving a late, dramatic rally by Steve Lowery. That victory qualified Beem for the PGA Championship.

        Sunday, it was Woods who came up short at Hazeltine National Golf Club. He trailed Beem by two strokes at the start of the round, pulled within one but could get no closer. Beem shot 68-278, 10 under par and one better than Woods, who closed with a 67.

        “I never thought about Tiger,” Beem said. “I was more concerned about myself. I didn't know if I had what it takes to win a major championship, but I found out today. I'm still surprised I won.”

        Beem became the 12th champion of the last 15 PGA Championships to claim his first major in this event. The list includes David Toms, who won last year, and John Daly, who won in 1991 at Crooked Stick near Indianapolis after getting into the field as an alternate.

        There are theories about this, such as the PGA of America sets up its courses more closely to those played on the PGA Tour than those set up by the U.S. Golf Association and the Royal & Ancient, which governs the U.S. Open and the British Open.

        The PGA gave Beem and the others a course that was long, 7,360 yards, but not the beast that was Bethpage Park in New York, site of the U.S. Open in June. Most of the extra yardage was placed in the par-5s and the par-3s, giving average-length hitters a chance to win.

        Justin Leonard, not a long hitter himself, began the final round leading playing partner Beem by three shots; five players were within six shots of Leonard.

        Beem was playing in just his fourth major championship, and the best he had done was a tie for 70th in the '99 PGA Championship.

WHO?

Who is Rich Beem?     • Age: 32 this Saturday     • Previous career wins: (2) 1999 Kemper Open; 2002 International.     • Years on PGA Tour: 4     • Before PGA: Worked in pro shop at El Paso (Texas) Country Club     • Career earnings before Sunday: $2,964,723     • Money won Sunday: $990,000     • When not playing golf: Quit the game temporarily in 1995 and sold cellular phones and car stereo systems in Seattle.

        “I didn't have any expectations of winning,” Beem said. “I can play with these guys, but to win a major you have to have something special.”

        Pepto-Bismol moments

        Beem should have had more confidence. He had shot 72 in the first round and again in the third round when the wind blew at 40 mph.

        In the second round he shot 66, matching the lowest competitive score at Hazeltine National, a course that had been the site of two U.S. Opens before the PGA Championship.

        In the last round he hit 13 of 14 fairways, 15 of 18 greens in regulation and made 30 putts.

        Woods was fighting his swing, so Leonard, who won the '97 British Open in windy conditions, looked like the man to beat.

        His disposition is calm, and he's a deft wind player, as he proved Saturday.

        “I've never seen him beat himself,” Charles Howell, one of the Tour's best young players, said Sunday of Leonard. “He hits it in the fairway, on the green and makes the putt.”

        Leonard made it easier for everyone by getting off to a shaky start and completed the front nine in double-bogey, bogey, two back of Beem and out of contention at the turn. He finished with a 77.

        “I don't care what the weather was today ... the way that Rich played the last two rounds, nobody was going to beat him,” Leonard said. “He played better than anyone over the weekend, and that's when you win a major championship.”

        Woods finished with four consecutive birdies, but Beem had all the cushion he needed from an eagle he made on the 11th hole to go 10 under par and take a three-stroke lead over Woods. Beem hit a driver and 5-wood on the 597-yard hole and sank a putt from 6 feet for a three.

        “I heard the roars,” Beem said of the gallery, “and I knew (Woods) made birdie on some of the holes, but I was concerned about my game.”

        Beem noted Friday that he's a bundle of nerves on the golf course. He swigs Pepto-Bismol before every round, often drinking it in the locker room so no one will see him.

        Asked why he drinks it, he says, “So I don't go No. 2 on the golf course.”

        He goes through a bottle a week to calm his nerves. “I used to be embarrassed if someone saw me drink it, but now I don't care.”

        Ups and downs of a dreamer

        The latest PGA Championship winner is the son of Larry Beem, a teaching pro and lifetime member of the PGA of America, who is the golf coach at New Mexico State in Las Cruces, N.M. He was an exceptional college player at New Mexico State in the 1960s, and his son followed as a player at New Mexico State.

        But the son's career path took a bunch of turns and went down some rocky roads. Beem settled down, eventually marrying Sara Waide. He played mini-tours, worked as a teaching pro at El Paso Country Club and sold those cell phones and car stereo systems in Seattle.

        In '99 while a rookie on the PGA Tour, he won the Kemper Open, which gave him a two-year exemption.

        The same year he was the subject of a book, “Bud, Sweat and Tees: A Walk on The Wild Side”. It was a look at a rookie's year on the Tour, and Beem was depicted as a party man, who consumed too much alcohol for his own good.

        “That was who I was at the time,” Beem said, “but I'm a different person now. I'm a better person. I have a much more stable life off the golf course.”

        He credits his wife for the stability. He prepared for the final round by having dinner with her and a friend Saturday night. “I usually have a couple of beers and then something to eat,” Beem said. “Then I go to the hotel.”

        In looking back on his career Sunday evening, he said the major influences were his father, Larry; his former boss at El Paso Country Club, Cameron Doan, and his wife.

        It was Doan who set him down and gave him a choice.

        “Rich,” he told Beem, “you have two choices: You either quit and play golf for a living, or you just quit because you're not a very good teaching pro.”

        “If I really liked being a teaching pro, I would not be here,” Beem said. “I didn't enjoy the long hours, the meager pay. But it kept me close to golf, so I liked that.”

        Doan is now his instructor, but the guiding force is his father.

        “He loves golf and he has given his life to it,” Beem said. “He mowed the greens, he picked up the range balls and he taught lessons. He loved to teach.”

        When Beem thinks back on their years together, he says he recalls watching that '91 PGA Championship, which Daly won as an unknown. “I think I got more nervous over some of the shots he had to hit then he did,” said Beem, who watched a telecast of the championship with his father.

        Larry Beem watched the telecast Sunday, and his son planned a call to him Sunday night. Sometime soon, Beem said they'll get together - just Rich, Larry and the Wanamaker Trophy.

        “I look forward to being with him,” Beem said. “We're just going to hang out, have a few beers and stare at this trophy.”

        Instead of dreaming of the future, they'll surely be thinking about the past, grateful that all the bad times have turned out for the good.

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