With a head full of nerves and little in his stomach other than Pepto Bismol, Rich Beem nearly wilted both mentally and physically under the stifling heat on the back nine at the TPC at Avenel.

Somehow, he kept his game together. The lead he had built on the front nine was cushion enough, and the 28-year-old rookie held on for his life-changing first PGA Tour victory today in the Kemper Open.

"I was just trying to finish the last three holes,'' Beem said. "I was walking up the hill after my tee shot at 16 and my legs were just about out, I was so tired, physically, mentally, not trying to think about everything."

Beem, who putted well all tournament, had sunk a 45-footer on the first hole, a 10-footer on the third and rattled one in from 25 on the fifth. By then he had a four-stroke lead, and he parred all but two holes the rest of the way for a 1-under-par round of 70 and a 10-under 272 total, one shot ahead of Bradley Hughes and two-time champion Bill Glasson.

It looked much easier than it was. Beem had woken up early today feeling sick to his stomach. He ate little, went out to buy the pink remedy and put it in his bag until he got to the locker room restroom.

"I was still hiding it, so I went to the stall and took a couple of big chugs off of it so nobody could see exactly how nervous I was,'' Beem said.

The stomach felt better, but the lack of food was dangerous on a day when the temperature was in the 90s and humidity was almost unbearable. At the 13th tee, caddie Steve Duplantis told Beem to eat an energy bar just to get through the round.

It was one of many pep talks from Duplantis, who was fired by Jim Furyk earlier this year and joined Beem this week. Before the first tee, Duplantis patted Beem on both shoulders to calm him down.

"Without him, this week wouldn't have happened," Beem said. "Steve was a huge part of me winning."

The first win on a PGA Tour is always a milestone experience, but it's mammoth leap for Beem, who quit golf for a while in 1995 to sell car stereo systems and cellular phones. He had never played a single event on the PGA or Nike tours before this year, having spent 1998 chasing $5,000 winners' checks in unknown tournaments on the Sun Country PGA Section in west Texas and New Mexico.

Beem's biggest previous paycheck had been $25,000 for finishing ninth in the qualifying school, earning him a spot on this year's PGA Tour. He had played in 11 tour events before the Kemper, missing the cut seven times, finishing no higher than a tie for 45th at the Buick Invitational and earning just $24,590. He had missed five straight cuts.

Now Beem, from El Paso, Texas, is taking home a $450,000 first prize and a two-year exemption on the tour. He also qualifies for January's Mercedes Championships, where last place was worth $25,000 this year.

"I can't tell you how frightened I was that this dream that I was living was going to end after one year," Beem said. "I got a job for the next two years. That makes me really happy.''

Beem, who plans to undergo laser correction surgery on his eyes next week so he can get rid of his contact lenses, is the second rookie winner and third first-time winner on the tour this year. Rookie Carlos Franco won the Compaq Classic in New Orleans earlier this month, and Glen Day took the MCI Classic in Hilton Head, S.C., in April.

Several players in the pack tried their best to make it interesting. Hal Sutton shot a 65, Hughes and David Toms had 67s, defending champion Stuart Appleby a 68, and Glasson a 69. But all of them needed at least a minor collapse from Beem, and it never came.

There were a few wayward shots. The most serious on the front nine was a tee shot that landed in the front edge of a steep sand trap on the eighth, but Beem laid up and saved par with a nice approach shot to 3 feet of the pin.

A string of seven straight pars ended when Beem's second shot landed in the water at the par-5 13th, leading to his first bogey and cutting his lead over Tommy Armour III and Hughes to two strokes.

But Beem finished conservative, parring the next four holes and still leading by two at the 18th. His left his approach short on the final hole, made a 3-foot putt for bogey, thrust his arm high into the air, hugged his girlfriend and got a phone to call his father Larry, the golf coach at New Mexico State.

"At 18, I just had to find a way not to shoot myself in the foot," Beem said. "I didn't."