Lee Trevino zings 2002 PGA Champion Rich Beem

You remember Rich Beem, right? You don’t? Well, he won the 2002 PGA Championship and hasn’t really been heard from much since. Until Friday evening at the PGA of America Awards banquet down in Orlando, that is.

Bill Eschenbrenner, a club pro from Lone Star Golf Club in El Paso, Texas, was being honored as PGA Golf Professional of the Year in front of some 1,500 guests. Beem, who gave Eschenbrenner a good deal of credit for his PGA Championship win, showed up as a surprise.

Nice gesture, right?

Only problem was that Beem rolled in looking like the proverbial turd in a punchbowl: Jeans, shirt hanging out, leather jacket and leather clogs sans socks. Guy looked like he just left a bar. These affairs are very very dignified and high class, as well they should be. As such, Beem’s appearance was a bit like running into a meeting of the Concerned Women for America, waving around a gin bottle and a speculum and hollering: “Who wants to party!?”

Lee Trevino, one of the speakers that night, said on stage, “Rich, you said that you never worked for Bill Eschenbrenner. I got news for you, you couldn’t if you showed up and didn’t have socks a shirt and a tie.”

Beem is a guy who once quit the tour to go sell car stereos and cell phones. If his golf game doesn’t pick up, he may need to do that again. A career on the celebrity-appearance circuit doesn’t seem to be a good fit.