Deane Beman didn’t become a professional golfer to get wealthy. He made more money selling insurance than he did in his early days as a tour pro—the start of a seven-year career that began at age 29 and featured four official victories, plus a runner-up finish at the 1969 US Open. More than merely a short-hitting grinder who plotted his way around a course to subdue physically superior opponents, Beman was a true visionary, which is why a five-man panel made him its overwhelming choice to replace Joe Dey as PGA Tour commissioner at the end of 1973.
“Not too many [players] retire when they’re No. 26 on the money list,” Carl Lohren, a teammate of Beman’s at the University of Maryland, says in Adam Schupak’s 2011 biography, “Golf’s Driving Force.”
The job came with a starting salary of $75,000; Beman’s foresight alone is perhaps the biggest reason current commish Jay Monahan’s earnings surpassed $14 million in 2020. Time induces change, numbers become negligible and comparisons turn into wasted breath, but as Schupak points out, Beman remains the only big-league athlete ever to step straight from the playing field into a position as his sport’s principal administrator.
Almost 50 years later, his relevance has rediscovered its roots, due to the presence of LIV Golf and the threat it imposes on the empire he basically built from scratch. “Looking at it from afar, I don’t see a business model that can be successful,” Beman recently told Sports Illustrated in regard to the rival faction. “I don’t think the people putting up this money care anything about golf. Sooner or later, they will either stop putting money into it or walk away altogether.”
Any thoughts on a possible merger or alliance between the two organizations?
“I don’t know what that would add to what the Tour is today,” Beman said. “I don’t know what the Saudis could possibly add to this business model. My guess is, they like the Tour’s image and want to buy into that, which would only hurt the Tour itself.”
In a 45-minute interview from his home in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, the man primarily responsible for the economic and competitive structure of the pro game as we know it expressed very little concern over the defections of 30 or so Tour members to the upstart operation. Not in volume. Not in name. Only in respect to their legal counteraction.
“I understand a great deal about what the players are thinking,” Beman said. “There’s no way in the world they could have earned that kind of money if they had stayed, so it doesn’t surprise me. What bothers me greatly is that they would sue the Tour [over retaining certain competitive privileges].”
At age 84, almost three decades removed from office after handing over the commissionership to Tim Finchem, Beman hasn’t forgotten one of his most significant (and overlooked) acts in guiding the Tour from $400,000 in assets to $600 million during his 20 years at the helm. His implementation of a conflicting-event release policy was designed to prohibit players—usually top-tier performers—from competing in international tournaments held the same week as a Tour event.
For the man charged with overseeing the welfare of the entire product, Beman had ostensibly built a defense mechanism authorizing him to prevent affiliated members from competing against their home circuit, which could guarantee consistent opportunity against the game’s deepest fields for unequaled prize money. The system had never been seriously challenged, at least until this year, perhaps because Beman knew that a complete embargo on chasing overseas dough would lead to more problems than it solved.
So instead of issuing a full kibosh on such migration, Beman allowed each player three releases per year. Those requests had to be approved, as was the case when a handful of notables participated in the Saudi International nine months ago. This was four months before LIV Golf took flight, however, before anyone could realistically anticipate the headaches a Saudi-funded circuit would cause.
Beman made it clear that the original conflicting-event proposal was supported and ratified by the players of that period. He also voiced strong support for Monahan, who succeeded Finchem as commissioner in 2017. “I don’t think anyone came into the job more prepared than Jay,” Beman says. “I think he has done a great job, representing the Tour very well. He cares about the game very much. Very much.”
As for the latest conflict du jour, LIV Golf’s pursuit of accreditation with the Official World Golf Ranking, Beman took a somewhat philosophical position. Even at age 84, the old boss still retains an open mind and a fully functional set of ears. “What I think it’s going to come down to is, this is the same level of competition [as other recognized tours]? That may not be the case,” the former commissioner assessed. “It will be interesting to see where that part of it goes.”
Looks like a visionary’s vision can only go so far…
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