Golf equipment has changed a lot since Rich Beem won the 2002 PGA Championship. We have more fitting data, more shaft options, adjustable woods, increasingly specialized iron sets and putter technology that would have sounded pretty foreign 24 years ago.
The problems golfers are trying to solve haven’t changed nearly as much.
I watched Beem win at Hazeltine with my grandfather. We had seen him win The International two weeks earlier and were curious what he could do in only the fourth major championship start of his career. Beem was easy to like. He seemed relaxed and real. He later admitted he was so nervous coming down the stretch that he felt like he might throw up.
When he held off Tiger Woods to win, my grandfather, a retired chief of police and one heck of a character himself, was laughing and crying at the same time. I can still see it. We both became lifelong Beem fans.
More than two decades later, I was lucky enough to talk golf equipment with Beem. What struck me was how many of the things he was trying to solve in 2002 are the same things golfers are working through today: finding the right shaft weight, controlling the putter face, filling distance gaps and getting the right trajectory at the top of the bag.
Here’s what he told me.
Graphite iron shafts were rare. Beem never understood why.
Graphite iron shafts weren’t unheard of when Beem won at Hazeltine but winning a major with them was certainly rare. John Daly had done it at the 1995 Open Championship and Bryson DeChambeau would later win the 2020 U.S. Open with graphite shafts in his irons and wedges.
Beem’s move to graphite wasn’t the result of some elaborate fitting session. He kept asking for something lighter, something he felt would make it easier to get through the ball and create a little more speed.
Remember, this was 2002. Players didn’t have the amount of launch monitor data and shaft comparison information they have now. They could look at certain numbers but much of the decision still came down to what the player saw, felt and believed worked for his game.
Beem liked what graphite gave him and he essentially never went back.
“Why would you not? Nobody is putting a steel shaft in their driver, their fairway wood, their hybrid. Why stop? What’s the stigma all about? We all have graphite shafts somewhere in our bag.”
His point about the technology itself is important, too. Whatever turned you away from graphite years ago, whether it was weight, torque, feel or a lack of options, the category is much different now. There are enough weights, profiles and stiffness options that graphite doesn’t have to mean one particular type of shaft or golfer.
Beem is also glad he made the switch from a body standpoint. After decades of hitting thousands of golf balls, he likes the reduced vibration of graphite compared with steel.
What I found especially interesting is how little his reasoning has changed. Shortly after winning the PGA Championship, Beem talked about preferring lighter clubs, a softer feel and graphite shafts around 100 grams rather than the heavier steel options he had been playing.
More than two decades later, he’s still looking at it the same way.
The STX putter still looks good to him
Beem’s STX putter was another unusual piece of the winning setup.
He first picked one up at Doral. Seve Ballesteros and Jesper Parnevik had used STX putters and Beem remembers Parnevik being surprised when he saw that Beem had put one in the bag as well.
Beem liked the small head because he felt like he could control it.
“It was light but when I look down at it, it just looks like it’s supposed to for me and I putted really well with it.”
The putter was a little too light so he added lead tape until he got the weight where he wanted it.
After all of the attention zero-torque putters received in 2026, it’s interesting to look back at what Beem liked about the STX. It wasn’t a zero-torque putter but it was center-shafted and visually very different from many of the traditional blades being used on Tour at the time.
More importantly, Beem kept coming back to control and what he saw when he looked down.
That sounds pretty familiar today. Golfers may have more technology available to help stabilize the putter and manage face rotation but the end goal is still finding something you can aim, control and return consistently.
The STX worked well enough for Beem to need just 107 putts for the week at Hazeltine.
He has an Odyssey in play now but he still owns the STX. Every time he picks it up, it still looks good to him.
My favorite part of the bag: solving the gaps
My favorite part of Beem’s setup may be what he was doing at the top of the bag because there was so much problem solving involved.
He had a high-lofted fairway wood that didn’t fit neatly into one of the traditional categories. Someone asked him if it was a 5-wood. Beem’s answer was essentially that it wasn’t really a 5-wood. It was more like a 6-wood.
There weren’t nearly as many ways to customize a fairway wood then as there are now but loft was something players could work with. Beem found a setup that gave him the distance and trajectory he needed.
It sounds a lot like what we’re seeing today with more golfers putting 7-woods and even 9-woods in the bag. The number stamped on the sole is secondary to what the club does.
His approach to the 4-iron may be even more interesting.
At one point, Beem carried two of them. One was more blade-like while the other had a larger, more game-improvement-style head that was easier for him to launch higher. He wasn’t looking for two clubs that produced the exact same shot. He wanted two trajectory options when approaching greens from longer distances.
Eventually, one of the 4-irons came out and a fourth wedge took its place.
Now Beem is considering changing the balance again.
“I’ve got a gap in my bag right now that I need to fill and it makes me think of giving up a wedge and getting that gap cleaned up.”
Beem said he’s more comfortable manipulating a wedge yardage, either taking something off or going after one a little harder, than asking a fairway wood or long iron to cover a distance it isn’t well suited for.
That makes a lot of sense regardless of where you stand in your golf game.
The technology changed. The problems didn’t.
That was probably my biggest takeaway from talking equipment with Beem.
We can measure more now and adjust more. We have far more shaft, head and loft combinations available than he had when he won at Hazeltine.
But the questions are still pretty simple.
Can I get the ball high enough? Do I have a distance gap I can’t cover? Can I control the putter face? Does this shaft help me deliver the club the way I want? Does the club look right when I put it behind the ball?
Beem was solving those problems with graphite shafts, a club that was basically a 6-wood, two different 4-irons and an STX putter with lead tape.
Twenty-four years later, we have much more sophisticated tools to find the answers. We’re still asking a lot of the same questions and while Beem doesn’t play competitively as much anymore, I’m glad he shared some of his wisdom with us.
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