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Who is Beef? A quick guide to Andrew Johnston, fan favorite at The Open
by Robby Kalland
18h ago • 2 min read
Few golfers are more beloved than Phil Mickelson, but a bearded 27-year-old Englishman known simply as "Beef" may be the fans' favorite at the 145th Open Championship.
Andrew Johnston is making his debut in The Open this week and has put together three straight under-par rounds to move into solo-fourth place at 5 under, seven behind Henrik Stenson and six back of Mickelson.
Johnston has the everyman qualities and jovial personality that make someone a fan favorite.
First, he happily accepts being nicknamed Beef, which as he explains comes from some teasing by a childhood friend.
"When I was a kid, if I grow my hair out I'm a quarter-Jamaican so it goes curly, and one of my friends said 'your head looks like a big bit of beef, you've got a beefhead,'" Johnson explained in a press conference earlier in the week. "And it just stuck, honestly, and now everyone just calls me 'Beef.' They shortened it."
Not only does he not mind the nickname, he embraces it and will do promotional shoots like this, where he hits a hamburger with his driver.
He's a pudgy, full-bearded man whose smile is ever-present on the course, and his reactions to great shots are fantastic. Just look at this grin and hat wave to the crowd as they serenade him with "Beeeeeeef" after a chip-in on Saturday.
The fans in Scotland love him, and he's quickly becoming a favorite of viewers here in the U.S., so here's a quick crash course in the man they call Beef.
Johnston is in his second year as a full-time member of the European Tour -- prior to that he was on the Challenge Tour, which is the European version of the Web.com Tour -- and earned his first European Tour victory this year at the Spanish Open. That was the first chance for many golf fans to hear about Beef as his reaction to winning was tremendous, saying he was going to go home and get hammered. (By the way, he accomplished that goal and got drunk while dressed up like a piñata.)
That win got him into the U.S. Open -- where he made the cut and finished T54 -- and The Open. He backed it up with a T7 finish at the BMW PGA and a T12 at the Nordea Masters on the European Tour. He's risen from 220th in the World Golf Rankings at the beginning of 2016 to 104th and could crack the top 100 after this week. Prior to this season, he had two career top-10 finishes on the European Tour.
Beef may be recent phenomenon, even to European golf fans, but he doesn't appear to simply be a flash in the pan. He has three top 10s and a T12 this year and has made the cut in his first two career major championship appearances. That's a pretty strong year already, and Sunday it could get even better.
He has a chance for a massive payday and a top 10 in The Open with a solid final round. If he can produce something spectacular and Henrik Stenson and Phil Mickelson slide back, there's a possibility -- an extremely small one, but a real one nonetheless -- that we could see Beef lift the Claret Jug on Sunday afternoon.
The Claret Jug has seen a lot of parties in its day, but I have a feeling it would take a ride its never been on if it were to end up in the the hands of Beef.
Who is Beef? A quick guide to Andrew Johnston, fan favorite at The Open
by Robby Kalland
18h ago • 2 min read
Few golfers are more beloved than Phil Mickelson, but a bearded 27-year-old Englishman known simply as "Beef" may be the fans' favorite at the 145th Open Championship.
Andrew Johnston is making his debut in The Open this week and has put together three straight under-par rounds to move into solo-fourth place at 5 under, seven behind Henrik Stenson and six back of Mickelson.
Johnston has the everyman qualities and jovial personality that make someone a fan favorite.
First, he happily accepts being nicknamed Beef, which as he explains comes from some teasing by a childhood friend.
"When I was a kid, if I grow my hair out I'm a quarter-Jamaican so it goes curly, and one of my friends said 'your head looks like a big bit of beef, you've got a beefhead,'" Johnson explained in a press conference earlier in the week. "And it just stuck, honestly, and now everyone just calls me 'Beef.' They shortened it."
Not only does he not mind the nickname, he embraces it and will do promotional shoots like this, where he hits a hamburger with his driver.
He's a pudgy, full-bearded man whose smile is ever-present on the course, and his reactions to great shots are fantastic. Just look at this grin and hat wave to the crowd as they serenade him with "Beeeeeeef" after a chip-in on Saturday.
The fans in Scotland love him, and he's quickly becoming a favorite of viewers here in the U.S., so here's a quick crash course in the man they call Beef.
Johnston is in his second year as a full-time member of the European Tour -- prior to that he was on the Challenge Tour, which is the European version of the Web.com Tour -- and earned his first European Tour victory this year at the Spanish Open. That was the first chance for many golf fans to hear about Beef as his reaction to winning was tremendous, saying he was going to go home and get hammered. (By the way, he accomplished that goal and got drunk while dressed up like a piñata.)
That win got him into the U.S. Open -- where he made the cut and finished T54 -- and The Open. He backed it up with a T7 finish at the BMW PGA and a T12 at the Nordea Masters on the European Tour. He's risen from 220th in the World Golf Rankings at the beginning of 2016 to 104th and could crack the top 100 after this week. Prior to this season, he had two career top-10 finishes on the European Tour.
Beef may be recent phenomenon, even to European golf fans, but he doesn't appear to simply be a flash in the pan. He has three top 10s and a T12 this year and has made the cut in his first two career major championship appearances. That's a pretty strong year already, and Sunday it could get even better.
He has a chance for a massive payday and a top 10 in The Open with a solid final round. If he can produce something spectacular and Henrik Stenson and Phil Mickelson slide back, there's a possibility -- an extremely small one, but a real one nonetheless -- that we could see Beef lift the Claret Jug on Sunday afternoon.
The Claret Jug has seen a lot of parties in its day, but I have a feeling it would take a ride its never been on if it were to end up in the the hands of Beef.
