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 According to Mark “Beer Man” Johnson, this was all part of the grand plan. Well, almost all of it. Not even Johnson’s foresight accounted for his 200th and final shot of his first Champions Tour victory — an 89-yard lob wedge that landed three feet past the pin, then spun back and disappeared into the hole. “Everything seemed to go my way this week,” said Johnson, whose eagle-3 punctuated a 67-63-70 week that earned the Helendale resident cult status along with the status of a Champions Tour exemption through 2006. “I holed out shots and made some long putts.” He needed only 78 of them to turn aside Keith Fergus and Wayne Levi, which explains why the teetotaling Johnson was hoisting lead crystal along with a non-alcoholic O’Doul’s after his four-shot victory. But none of those long shots were longer than the one that brought Johnson to a beer wagon full of appreciative fans. Johnson, 50, spent 18 years driving an Anheuser Busch beer truck around the High Desert, schlepping 600 to 1,000 cases of suds a day to restaurants and bars that doubled as last-chance bathroom stops for Vegas-bound Southern Californians. If going to work at 4:30 a.m. and driving a truck in blast-furnace heat during the summer for $35,000 a year is a recipe for golfing stardom, perhaps we’ve been doing this practice thing wrong all along. “Wow, $247,500 is a lot of money. Things have really changed for me,” he said, trying to comprehend the shock and awe of the largest paycheck he’s ever earned for three rounds of golf. Actually, this was all part of the plan, one that included reposing to a local range and hitting golf balls not long after the last case was unloaded. Johnson brewed himself a stellar amateur career outside of the truck. He won the second-ever CIF-Southern Section golf title as a Barstow High senior in 1972, then parlayed his avocation into several Southern California Golf Assn. Mid-Amateur titles and the 1996 California State Amateur. Still, beating up on the Southern California amateur contingent — while having its advantages — left a void in Johnson’s resume that his genial nature barely concealed. In 1998, he turned professional, honing his game at various PGA TOUR Qualifying Schools, an array of mini-tours, what was then the Buy.com Tour and the Canadian Tour — all with the mindset of preparing himself for turning 50. “It was a tough decision to give up my amateur status,” he said. “I knew how hard it was to get out here.” So does Des Smyth, which explains why the Irishman and former European Tour mainstay took a moment out of his Sunday round to offer words of encouragement to Johnson as he warmed up on the range. As Smyth sauntered up the 10th fairway, which adjoins the Newport Beach Country Club range, he detoured long enough to tell Johnson this was his moment, much like the week before at Valencia Country Club – when Smyth carded a 68 in brutally difficult conditions – made the previous week’s SBC Classic. That week, Smyth was The Man. The following week, Beer Man was The Man. And the toasts for the latest of a popular string of Toshiba Senior Classic champions probably haven’t stopped yet. n |
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