Andy Bean, center, explains rules to Steve Spurrier during a celebrity golf tournament in Lakeland in 2017. (Photo: Ernst Peters/Lakeland Ledger via USA TODAY Sports)
Carter's Corner: Remembering Colorful Gators, PGA Tour Veteran Andy Bean
Thursday, October 19, 2023 | Men's Golf, Scott Carter
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By: Scott Carter, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Since his death heading into last weekend, friends of former Gators and PGA Tour golfer Andy Bean have shared their memories of Bean on social media.
They have reminisced about his skills as a fisherman, his charitable deeds, his religious faith, and his willingness to help those in need. They often refer to him as a gentle giant and true Southern gentleman, recalling the animated drawl that made you feel like an instant friend.
"Well, let's say I'm not one of those uptown dudes,'' Bean once told the Tampa Tribune.
A member of Florida's 1973 NCAA champion men's golf team, Bean was born in Lafayette, Ga., about an hour's drive across northern Georgia from the town of Chatsworth, where Gators football coach Billy Napier grew up. Bean was raised on Jekyll Island in South Georgia and learned to play golf from his father, golf pro and course superintendent Tom Bean. For a brief time on Jekyll Island, Bean had a pet alligator, earning him the nickname Alligator Andy when word about his past spread following his first PGA Tour victory.
The family moved to Florida when Bean was 15, and he later joined a talented UF team that 50 years ago became the second team in school history in any sport to win a national championship (1968 men's golf was the first).
The 6-foot-4, 225-pound Bean towered over his Gators teammates, a group that included future PGA Tour players Gary Koch, Woody Blackburn and Phil Hancock, plus Fred Ridley, current chairman of Augusta National Golf Club.
At the 1973 NCAA Championships in Stillwater, Okla., Bean finished sixth in the individual standings, five shots behind winner and future PGA Tour star Ben Crenshaw of Texas. Koch was runner-up, three shots back of Crenshaw's winning score. But with four players in the top 15 — Ben Duncan was ninth, and Blackburn, 11th — the Gators won the team title by 10 strokes over runner-up Oklahoma State.
Andy Bean, second from right, was part of Florida's 1973 NCAA champion men's golf team. (Photo: University Athletic Association archives)
A three-time All-American at Florida, Bean's star continued to rise, and by the time he prepared to make his PGA Tour debut in 1976, the colorful newcomer was already drawing headlines.
"Bean is a big, powerful, genial athlete of the Joe Palooka mold who is so honest, candid and trusting one wonders if he isn't a Disney studio creation," Palm Beach Post golf writer Jim Warters penned in November 1975.
Bean used a grip-it-and-rip-it approach with a soft touch around the greens.
"I don't worry about anything. I let everybody else worry for me,'' Bean said of his anticipated debut. "I enjoy playing golf too much to worry about it. The less you worry, the easier it's going to be."
Bean's attitude eventually began to pay off as a professional following a winless rookie season in which he finished 139th on the money list. He won his first PGA Tour event in 1977, winning $40,000 at the Doral Open. He celebrated by returning home to Lakeland and meeting his parents for veal cutlets and lasagna at their favorite Italian restaurant.
Bean's authentic nature made him a favorite of fans and the media, but he was more than a good quote on tour.
Bean won 11 times on the PGA Tour, his final victory at the 1986 Byron Nelson Golf Classic. Bean won twice in 1986 and ranked with notables Scott Hoch, Greg Norman, Bernhard Langer, Tom Watson and Paul Azinger among the tour's scoring leaders that season. Bean played for the U.S. in the Ryder Cup in 1979 and 1987, and considered the experience a cherished privilege.
Bean gained extra notoriety in 1978 when late New York Times columnist Dave Anderson featured Bean in his nationally syndicated column at the U.S. Open at Cherry Hills.
"He wins bets in bars by biting a chunk out of the cover of a golf ball. And he once flipped an alligator over by the tail," wrote Anderson to start his column.
Both stories were true.
To convince people he could take a bite out of a ball, he once performed the stunt on television during a rain delay at a winter tournament. As for the gator tale, well, Bean didn't see what the fuss was about.
"The alligator thing was nothing big,'' he said. "I just saw a little 5-foot alligator once near a water hole in Florida and flipped it over by its tail. That's easy. But the guy I was playing with made it sound like I wrestled it." Andy Bean following his first career victory on the PGA Tour. (Photo: PGA of America)
Bean continued to live in Lakeland following his playing career. He reportedly died from complications following a double-lung transplant earlier this year.
He was a big man with a big personality.
Bean rooted for the Gators until the end and occasionally appeared on campus. He was inducted into the UF Athletic Hall of Fame in 1978 and the Florida Sports Hall of Fame in 2000.
A memorial service for Bean will be held Saturday at Heritage Baptist Church in Lakeland. In place of flowers, the family requests donations to The First Tee of Lakeland, Lighthouse Ministries or Covenant Presbyterian Church, all located in Lakeland.
