Bud, Sweat, And Tees: Hootie, Martha, and the Masters of the Universe

Unless your name is Tiger Woods, there are no easy rides on the PGA Tour--particularly your first year--and no one's ever confused fun-loving Rich Beem's game with the Tiger's. Still, Sports Illustrated 's Alan Shipnuck struck gold by picking Beem and his rookie season as subjects to chronicle in Bud, Sweat, & Tees: A Walk on the Wild Side of the PGA Tour . To begin with, he found a colorful player with a renegade personality who actually managed to confound the odds and post victory--at the 1999 Kemper Open. But there's more. As vivid a character as Beem turns out to be, his caddie Steve Duplantis, who'd previously toted for Jim Furyk, is a true rogue who makes Beem seem a choirboy by comparison. Shipnuck provides all the necessary drama of life on the course, but the real fun of Bud, Sweat, & Tees is life beyond it, how Beem and Duplantis survive the highs and lows the game provides. At his best, Shipnuck manages to bring together their shared existence within the ropes and beyond, nowhere better than in Memphis the week after Beem's victory. He and Duplantis, who first caddied for him at the Kemper, have gone to Tennessee to try qualifying for the 1999 U.S. Open. That Beem misses is but a sidelight of the tour de force sequence that sees their relationship form against the backdrop of Duplantis cheating on his ex-fiancée Shannon--recalled by both Duplantis and Shannon, who's nannying Duplantis's daughter--as Beem is trying to focus on his game. It begins in a bar, the three of them together, with Beem ogling Shannon as she walks to the ladies' room, and Duplantis calling him on it. "The player-caddie dynamic is always delicate," writes Shipnuck, "to the point that it is often discussed in the nomenclature of a courtship. For Beem and Duplantis, then, winning their first tournament together was like sleeping together on a first date--fun, to be sure, but complicated. If they were going to have a meaningful long-term relationship they would need a few more nights like this, getting to know each other." The nights--and days--that follow are as fun to read as the greens at Augusta. -- Jeff Silverman From Publishers Weekly Despite its droll title, Sports Illustrated writer Shipnuck's first book affords an earnest and unsentimental portrayal of life on the PGA tour. It follows two of golf's lesser-known figures through the 1999 season: a rookie named Rich Beem, who won the Kemper Open that year, and his caddie Steve Duplantis. Both men open up to Shipnuck about their personal histories, as do their families, friends, colleagues, lovers and former employers. Tightly weaving the private with the professional, the author chronicles Beem's inconsistent, occasionally brilliant performances on the golf course, alongside his past jobs, romances and periodic problems with alcohol. Duplantis, who often falls short in his responsibilities as a caddy because of his inability to manage a turbulent personal life, gets a similarly nuanced treatment. Indeed, the depth to which Shipnuck delves into their difficulties with money, family and their own partnership gives his narrative an almost painful poignancy. As for the golf itself, the author clearly knows his subject, and his keen-eyed descriptions of Beem and Duplantis at work both entertain and enlighten. He gives an exciting play-by-play of their miraculous victory at the Kemper Open, wherein Beem executed one brilliant shot after another, mainly as a result of Duplantis's ego-boosting exhortations. By tempering such stories of his subjects' heroics with the mundane realities of their lives, Shipnuck portrays them as flawed, likeable people who struggle like the rest of us, with imperfect results. (Jan.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist Billed justifiably as a Ball Four for golf, the story of former cell phone salesman Rich Beem, the unlikely winner of the 1999 Kemper Open, will be music to the ears of anyone who carries a few beers in his golf bag. Sports Illustrated writer Shipnuck picks up the story just after Tour rookie Beem had won the Kemper, his first tournament with caddie Steve Duplantis; he then provides the fascinating backstory on both player and caddie, an incredible saga of bad judgment and lack of discipline coming together to produce momentary perfection. Not that Beem was a bad golfer or Duplantis a bad caddie; only that Beem had never really worked at his game before somehow qualifying for the tour, and Duplantis had thrown away a storybook job--caddy to top player Jim Furyk. Shipnuck recounts how the two met, tasted triumph, and then slowly let it all slip away in a flurry of late nights and missed cuts. An R-rated Cinderella story that will gladden the heart of every golfer who would rather play than practice. Bill Ott Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Dan Jenkins Alan Shipnuck is fearless -- fearless enough to pick out a total unknown on the golf tour to write a book about, then to write a fascinating book about him. -- Alan Shipnuck was a twenty-one-year-old intern when he wrote his first cover story for Sports Illustrated. Now a Senior Writer at SI, Shipnuck writes regularly on golf and has twice been a recipient of awards from the Golf Writers Association of America. He lives in Southern California with his wife, Frances. Read more