FeedsPlymouth pro teaches alongside LPGA legend Nancy Lopez
Most athletes only dream of the opportunity to play or work along side a sports legend.
Imagine being a basketball player and having a chance to work a camp with Michael Jordan or a hockey player able to play along side Gordie Howe. Not too many people would pass it up.
That’s why when the opportunity to instruct golf side-by-side with Lady Professional Golf Association (LPGA) legend Nancy Lopez was available, local golf pro Tami Bealert jumped at it.
It took a little convincing to leave everything behind in Michigan to head to the warmth of Florida for the winter season, but the 46-year-old Carl’s Golfland pro did and is happy she took the chance.
“I’m always looking for something fun and interesting to do,” she said. “Nancy is a wonderful and delightful person to be around. She is a very down to earth with everyone.
“At first, I was a bit nervous since we had not really talked much before working together the first day of the Nancy Lopez Golf School. Once we spent more time working together, I began to feel more comfortable. It was a great experience and I am thankful for the opportunity to work with her. It was a lot of fun.”
Lopez is heralded as the greatest female golfer of her generation, winning 48 LPGA events—including three majors—and is the only player to win the Rookie of the Year, Player of the Year and Vare Trophy in the same year (1978).
In October, Bealert packed up her car and took off to Florida with The Villages as her destination. There, she and 83 other professionals took to the greens and offered a series of golf clinics and private lessons to the more than 90,000 residents in the retirement community.
Along with not knowing anybody on arrival, she pushed the ‘something fun and interesting’ envelope to a new level when she decided to live the duration of the trip in a rented apartment on a horse farm. The tranquil setting proved useful for her second favorite indulgent—running.
“I would wake up in the morning and there would be horses right outside my kitchen window,” she said. “I would go running in the mornings and then it would be off to work. It was just a great experience all-around.”
It was back to reality when she returned to this state earlier this month and hit the soggy and very cold links.
With the beautiful St. John’s as a backdrop and windy enough conditions to send even the bravest of golfers back to the covered and heated driving range at Carl’s, Bealert braved the elements. Her teeth chattered but her swing was smooth and flawless—one after the other—as she chipped over a bunker and on to the green inches from the flag.
Then again, that’s just what she does. She’s professional in every meaning of the word and it all started at an early age.
In Minnesota her family lived on a private nine-hole course where she took to finding golf balls and tagged along with her older brother, Jay, to the driving range. Jay cut down a set of clubs for his, at the time, 9-year-old sister so she could play. Later she followed in his footsteps by working at the country club where she did everything from working in the pro shop to mowing the greens.
She then played competitively in high school, going to the state championship her last three years. That paved way for a college career in the sport. She earned All-American honors at Minnesota State University (MSU) where the team won two National Championship in 1982 and 83. In 1995 she was inducted into the MSU Athletic Hall of Fame.
Her professional playing career includes the Central Florida Challenge and the Futures Tour that nearly got her a ticket to the LPGA Tour where she would have played against rather than work next to the likes of Lopez.
Bealert is a class “A” PGA Member and has instructed golf at Walt Disney World Golf Resort, Disney Inn and the PGA National Academy of Golf. More recently she was instrumental in developing a junior golf program for National’s First Tee’s pilot site in Richmond, VA.
Nike sponsors the pro and she recently added the Nike SasQuatch Sumo² driver to her arsenal.
Bealert has been at Carl’s Golfland since 2002 where she concentrates on teaching more than playing.
“Tami is very, very qualified and really good at what she does,” said Tom North, a manager at Carl’s Golfland. “She has a game plan with every student that comes in. She’ll find out what their needs are and where they’re at in their game and set up a plan accordingly to get them to where they want to go.”
He said that Bealert is a remarkable person. As a runner, she has participated in the Boston, New York and Detroit marathons. And in her spare time she helps with church programs.
“She is always looking for something and I think that is what is so great about her,” North added. “She’s always trying to improve the quality of her lesson.”
Bealert might try something new—because that’s what she does—and play in the Michigan Open this summer.
“I am thinking about playing in it for the first time since living in Michigan with a goal of having fun and playing good golf and let the results take care of itself,” she said.
Through the years golf has become more of a way of life than a game to Bealert.
“The thing I like most about golf are the challenges that it brings, which is much like how life can sometimes challenge us,” she said. “In golf and life we have our ups and downs. It teaches and provides the opportunities to build positive life skills such as dealing with adverse situations on the course similar in how we may handle situations in our life. This is a great game, which can help build your social skills, keeps you humble and, at the same time, it helps to build character.
“Your real competition is you and the golf course.”
She doesn’t know what the future has in store for her but whatever it is she plans to ease into it and enjoy it like she does the present, taking it one hole at a time.
“I’m just enjoying life right now,” she said, “just as it is; as it comes.”
