Andy Bean is remembered by a hometown as the man with a big heart.

LAKELAND FL – Gary Koch remembers Andy Bean’s best story from when they were University of Florida team mates competing in the Chris Schenkel invitational at Statesboro, Georgia. Koch watched as Bean, angry after having missed a short putt, appeared to bite into a balata. A curious Koch looked for the ball among the bushes near the green.

Koch laughed and said, “Sure, this Titleist 3 has a large chunk cut out, just like an Apple.”

Woody Blackburn shared a room with Bean in Florida. He recalled that Bean had once picked up a baby monkey on his way home from racoon practice and put him into an empty golf bag.

Bean was adamant that he could train the dog after it had soiled its dorm room bed. “He’ll do fine.”

Bean and Debbie lived on the back 9 of Grasslands Golf and Country Club, in Lakeland Florida. Friends came together shortly after Bean’s death from complications following double lung replacement surgery in October last year at age 70 to organize the Andy Bean Memorial Golf Tournament. Proceeds will benefit the local First Tee Program. The event was sold out within a week.

Bean, who was born in Jekyll Island and grew up on Georgia’s Jekyll Island moved to Lakeland as a teenager. After a successful stay at Florida, he joined the PGA Tour, where he won 11 tournaments during a 10-year period. Bean never won a major but he was runner-up on three occasions and played for the U.S. in two Ryder Cups (1979 and 1987).

His three daughters wore Ryder Cup sweatshirts that bore their father’s name on the back at Grasslands. His seven grandchildren, who are aged between 5 and 10, wore shirts with the words “Team Dodad.”

Lauren Cushenbery, Bean’s oldest daughter said: “It is overwhelming to see all that they have created today.”

There’s so much love in the way he treated me as a child and how he treated so many others.

Never forget to look out for others

Andy Bean carried a rope on the back of his pickup truck to assist those who were stranded along the side of the highway. He often used his boat to rescue people stuck on a bar of sand in the Florida Everglades.

He would often pay anonymously for the meals served to firefighters and police officers. After coming just one stroke short at the 1983 British Open he bought a wheelchair for the little girl who was being pushed by her parents up and down hills all week in the gallery.

Debbie said, “He had a great heart for children.”

Bean raised millions of dollars for First Tee of Lakeland while still competing on PGA Tour Champions. The Barkley, Bean, Bryant and Friends event was a celebrity-driven fundraiser that lasted 15 years.

T.J. Wright held his first golf club when he was nine years old at the First Tee Golf Club in Lakeland. Bean bought Wright’s par-3 membership and watched him play in junior tournaments.

Wright, now 27, is the executive director of First Tee.

“The way he cared for the game and other kids in the community was very inspirational to me. It’s one of the main reasons I wanted come back to work at First Tee.”

I spent some time at a fundraiser in Lakeland, my hometown in memory of Andy Bean. Fred Ridley was there, as were several @ChampionsTour golfers. It was a great day to remember a great man.

Here’s the Chairman Ridley at work. pic.twitter.com/XdvLzloTEB

Beth Ann Nichols 15 January 2024

Jack Nicklaus donated to the auction on Monday a replica of his 1-iron, which he used to birdie 17th hole in Pebble Beach, 1972, en route towards winning his third U.S. Open title.

Koch, a six time winner on the PGA Tour, and a television broadcaster, has donated a foursome to play golf with him and have lunch at Old Memorial Golf Club in Tampa. David Leadbetter, a close friend of mine, donated a 2-hour lesson.

Leadbetter began his teaching career at the Andy Bean Studio in Haines City. Bean invited Leadbetter for his first Masters Tournament. Early in the week, they drove for about an hour to find good barbecue and a Dairy Queen.

Leadbetter said that Leadbetter was “like Buffalo Bill of the Tour” because he “threw alligators in the lake and ate golf balls.”

Fred Ridley is a former Florida teammate who now serves as the chairman of Augusta National Golf Club, and the Masters Tournament. He made the trip to Lakeland where he grew up and lived for eight years. Ridley moved to Winter Haven and played high school against Bean. He then teamed up with Bean in college.

Ridley, who won the U.S. In 1975, Ridley won the U.S. Bean, who had found the long rough of the par-5 16, pulled out a 3-iron to aim at the large oak tree that guarded the green. The ball bounced around in the oak tree before falling on the front edge of the green.

Bean won the hole but that wasn’t enough for him to win the match. Ridley stated that a reporter had asked Bean whether it was foolish to attempt to hit the shot from the rough.

Ridley recalled with a smile that Andy looked at the guy and said: “Mister, no tree in Virginia could stop Andy Bean’s golf ball.”

Andy Bean was the man in question.

Koch said that the 6-foot-4 Bean hit some of the prettiest shots ever seen in Florida. He described them as faded 2-irons and 3 irons which started low, and then dropped softly down like a feather.

Koch: “He knew long before we did.”

Bean and his wife Debbie met on a short Delta Flight. The young flight attendant was worried about losing her job if PGA Tour players complained that there was no ice in the plane. Bean instead asked if he could take them to dinner in Atlanta when he returned.

Friends say that having three daughters softened Bean’s world, which in his later years was centered on family, faith, and giving back.

Beans’ career as a professional golfer ended in 2014 due to a broken wrist sustained from a car crash. He had won three times on the PGA Tour Champions. He was still a regular on the course and offered tips to local juniors and college golfers, even after his lungs were destroyed by COVID-19 and he had to use an oxygen tank. If anyone needed help. Bean was always there.

Rick Nolte is the owner of a local golf shop. He said Bean liked to fiddle with his clubs, and would come in when he was at the point where he needed assistance.

Nolte said that people would do a double or triple take when they saw him behind the counter. They’d whisper to each other, “That’s Andy Bean.”

Brad Bryant began fishing with Bean in the 1980s, and they spent a lot of time together once Bryant moved to Lakeland. In Hawaii, they had a special place where they would bone fish in mud flaps. Bean saw four bonefish coming Bryant’s direction late one afternoon as the sun was setting.

It was Bean’s way of helping him catch the fish, by climbing 15 feet high up in a tree that stood out.

Bryant said, “That was Andy Bean.” Andy would go above and beyond to help you achieve your goals, which is something that few people would do.

He’ll always be known as the big man with a heart of gold in his hometown.