New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
Stamford native Beach now better prepared for PGA Championship
Alex Beach has been down this road before.
The first time the Stamford native qualified for the PGA Championship was in 2017. “There were 50,000 people every day, national live TV, standing shoulder to shoulder ultimately with your idols and tour professionals. That’s hard at some level until you do it a few times,” Beach said.
After not qualifying in 2018, Beach has made the field at the PGA for three straight years, including this week at the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island in South Carolina.
Beach qualified after tying for sixth place in the PGA Professional Championship held at PGA Golf Club in Port St. Lucie, Florida, in late April. The top 20 finishers qualify each year.
Joining Beach, 31, in this week’s field are Peter Ballo, another Stamford resident and the head pro at Silvermine GC in Norwalk. Ballo placed second in last year’s Connecticut Open and has qualified for the first time. Three-time Connecticut Open champion Frank Bensel and Danny Balin, a past Connecticut Open participant who played in last September’s U.S. Open, will also be competing.
“Pete is a good friend of mine. I anticipate playing a practice round with him and hang out together,” Beach said.
Beach, a teaching pro at Westchester (N.Y.) CC, won the PGA Professional Championship in 2019. Not only did that land him a spot in the PGA and on the U.S. PGA Cup team, it also earned him six sponsor exemptions on the PGA Tour.
So Beach played in the 2020 Sony Open, the Farmers Insurance Open, and the Puerto Rico Open before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. He was able to see the remaining three on this season’s schedule. He already played the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship in September.
Beach has missed the cut in all three tournaments and the past three PGA Championships he competed in.
“I’ve started to believe in my game a lot more as how to compete at that level,” Beach said. “The PGA championship is one of the hardest setups the tour plays.”
Beach said he will use his he remaining two sponsor’s exemptions at the Travelers Championship — to be held June 24-27 at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell — and the Barracuda Championship in August.
Not only did the pandemic take out three months of the PGA Tour season last year, it canceled qualifying for USGA events and the 2020 PGA Professional Championship. So the top 20 players from the 2019 national points list advanced to last August’s PGA at Harding Park in San Francisco.
“It was strange without them. There wasn’t that normal energy,” Beach said. “I held my own on some level. This will be a great week regardless of what happens. Anything is possible. The hardest part of the tournament is getting a tee time.”
You might think the goal would be for Beach to make his first cut at the PGA. But the bar is set higher than that.
“The only goal really is to win a PGA championship. It doesn’t rally stray off of that,” Beach said. “If I go out and play two smart, patient and solid rounds of golf, that will likely get me there (to the weekend). I’m going to have a great time. I’m putting no pressure on myself. I’d love to play on the weekend. If I do everything I know how to and I get a couple of breaks Thursday and Friday, that’s well within the realm of possibility.”