Bud, Sweat, & Tees: Rich Beem’s Walk on the Wild Side of the PGA Tour Reviews
Bud, Sweat, & Tees: Rich Beem’s Walk on the Wild Side of the PGA Tour
Rich Beem became an overnight folk hero with his victory at the 2002 PGA Championship, where he dazzled fans with fearless shotmaking and glib one-liners. By the time Beem had stared down Tiger Woods in an epic back nine and then danced a goofy jig on the final green, the sports world was clamoring to know, “Who is this guy, anyway?”That question is answered in Bud, Sweat, & Tees, Alan Shipnuck’s no-holds-barred look at modern professional golf. Shipnuck began tracking Beem during his rookie year in 1999, when he was a logo-free rube only a couple of years removed from a seven-dollar-an-hour job hawking cell phones. Beem and his hard-living caddie, Steve Duplantis, would find sudden fame and fortune, and Shipnuck enjoyed unparalleled access
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Rich Beem and the PGA. It’s Wild, But Not That Wild but Play-By-Play is Excellent!,
The title of Alan Shipnuck’s book, “Bud, Sweat, & Tees: Rich Beem’s Walk on the Wild Side of the PGA Tour” led me to believe that Beem and Duplantis (his caddie) were going to be the Motley Crue of the PGA Tour. They really seem like regular golfers to me…strippers and drinking by a golfer? It is called the 19th hole as far as the sport goes.
Rick Reilly of Sports Illustrated gives a warning on the cover of the book that states: “Warning: Strippers, groupies, gambling, drinking: Someone forgot to tell Alan Shipnuck that books about golf are supposed to be boring”. OK, there are some crazy times but this is not the best part of the book. In fact, this is the boring part of the story.
The best section of the book is the detailed play-by-play of Beems’ win at The Kemper Open and activity thereafter. Shipnuck makes you feel like you are right there playing with Beem and Duplantis, he describes the smell of the golf course so well it’s like Charles Dickens wrote it.
Details of family life, difficulty of travel, and general life on the road are also brilliantly explained. Life is not as sweet as one would believe when it comes to tour travel and Shipnuck captures this completely. The failures after a win will surprize anyone who reads this. Beem and Duplantis show that sometimes winning brings too much of what one has wished for. Shipnuck makes you think about what you would do in the same situation (if I could ever break 80!).
I think the “wildness” of this book has been a bit overemphasized, otherwise, it is an excellent read if you want to know the nitty-gritty of what it takes to make the big leagues.
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|Party-Time Nearly Sunk Beem,
This is a great story of life on the PGA Tour. It’s also a story of a common man “who made it big” by winning tour events and a major.
But he was also a man who was immature and who nearly lost it all by partying too much. The good news: he eventually realized it and cleaned up his behavior.
I have never understood the “let’s party all the time” and “get blasted every night” mentality. But it’s sold to us every waking minute by beer commercials as the way to be the hippest, and coolest person around. Tragedies just waiting to happen, and Rich Beem came very close to being one. Drink up!
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|Didn’t want it to end!,
Great book, If you ever had a competitive bone in your body, you will love this book. A perspective on golf from an everyday guy like you and me.
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