Not many of us have walked the golfing fairways with the game’s legends or found ourselves in competition on Augusta National or Pebble Beach or Shinnecock Hills with the roar of the fans marveling at our every drive or putt.
Chip Beck has.
He’s known Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Gary Player, Tom Watson, Raymond Floyd, Tom Kite, Tiger Woods, Nick Faldo, and the late Arnold Palmer and Payne Stewart.
“The joy I got out of it was tremendous,” says Beck, 69, who competed on the Professional Golfers Association Tour from 1978 until the late 1990s, where he won four tour events, narrowly missing out on three of the game’s major titles, earned the Vardon Trophy in 1988 and represented the United States on three consecutive Ryder Cups teams.
And then there was that notable round of 13 birdies at the 1991 Las Vegas Invitational for a 29-30 — 59. It was the second time a 59 was recorded in a competitive round in PGA Tour history. He received $1 million for the 59 and donated it to charities in support of junior golf scholarships.
“All I knew is that I wanted to play golf,” Beck said this week, recalling his days growing up at Highland Country Club with the late head pro Tony Evans teaching Beck the fundamentals of the game.
Beck won the Carolinas Junior Amateur Championship in 1972 and 1973. By 1976, he was a member of the University of Georgia golf team, where Beck was a three-time All-America before joining the PGA Tour in 1978.
He was a hometown golfer following in the footsteps of Raymond Floyd, who already was crafting a World Golf Hall of Fame career with major victories in the 1969 PGA, the 1976 Masters, the 1982 PGA, and the 1986 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in New York, where Floyd defeated Lanny Wadkins and Beck by two strokes for the title.
Chip Beck’s professional golf star was on the rise, and his time was coming.
Beck won the Los Angeles Open on February 28, 1988, for his breakthrough victory. He won the USF&G Classic by seven strokes on April 24, 1988, which led to the Vardon Trophy for the lowest scoring average on the PGA Tour.
“That was the year I played my best golf,” said Beck, who averaged 69.46 strokes per round.
He won the 1990 Buick Open and the 1992 Freeport-McMoRan Golf Classic by one stroke, with Greg Norman watching Beck’s final putt.
“Greg Norman was standing there with his arms crossed,” Beck said. “It was about 10 feet. He was thinking he was going to intimidate me. My whole family was there. My Mom and Dad, and everybody was there.”
It would be his last PGA Tour victory, although there was triumph in the 2007 Kinojo Senior Open on the Japan Senior Tour.
‘The Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat’
Chip Beck has known what it is to hoist the trophies. He has known the roars of the golfing fans and crowds outside the ropes. He has known the old “Wide World Sports” telecast with late sportscaster Jim McKay’s words of “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.”
Along with the runner-up finish to Raymond Floyd in the 1986 U.S. Open, there was the second-place finish to Curtis Strange in the 1989 U.S. Open by a single stroke at Oak Hills Country Club in Rochester, N.Y. There was the one-stroke, runner-up finish to Tom Kite in the 1989 Tournament Players Championship at Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, F.L. And that 1993 runner-up Masters finish to Bernhard Langer at Augusta National.
“I wanted to win that tournament,” Beck said.
Trailing Langer by three strokes on the par five 15th hole in the final round, Beck opted to lay up in front of the water rather than risk the 236-yard second shot into a swirling wind. The decision drew criticism from late sportscaster Ken Venturi as well as the late sportscaster Tom Weiskopf.
“That hurt,” Beck said about Venturi’s words.
Today, you’ll find Chip Beck working in the insurance business at his Bonita Bay Club home in Bonita Springs, F.L., and looking forward to his induction into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame, which is scheduled for 5 p.m. on May 1 at the Sheraton at Four Seasons Convention Center in Greensboro.
Others being inducted include University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill basketball standout Tyler Hansbrough, and Kelvin Sampson, head basketball coach at the University of Houston, which finished as runner-up to Florida in the 2025 NCAA finals at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.
‘You’re Chip Beck’
Beck still plays the game he has loved since age 10, playing in corporate outings.
“I feel honored that people respect me, and they care,” he said. “They say, ‘You’re Chip Beck. I followed your career. I’m a big fan of yours.’”
He doesn’t dwell on missed fairways or buried bunker lies or putting lip-outs or weekly PGA Tour stops or the life of a professional golfer.
Instead, he remembers the conversation with L.B. Floyd, late father of Raymond Floyd, not long before L.B. Floyd’s death.
“He said, ‘The greatest day of my life was when Raymond and you finished one and two in the U.S. Open,” Beck said. “It made me feel so good. It meant so much to L.B.”
Beck remembers those words from golfing legends about his decision not to go for the green on the 15th hole of the 1993 Masters.
“Raymond Floyd and Jack Nicklaus told me,” he said, “‘Chip, you did the right thing.’”
He remembers losing his swing and his competitive edge and the “burnout” from the PGA Tour weekly grind of being from one city to the next.
“The hardest time for me was 1995 and 1996,” Beck said. “I got burnout. I was playing with Tiger Woods at Torrey Pines Golf Course [San Diego, C.A.] I was struggling. But that’s when I started becoming closer with my family and my kids. People ask me all the time how I feel about my career. I tell them I have no regrets, because I gave it my best.”
Epilogue
A father of six, Chip Beck is grateful for his pending induction into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame and sharing the evening with his family.
He says the honor will not be his alone.
“I will think about them,” he said about his parents, the late Dr. Charles and Dolores Beck, and Jack Parks, Henry Hutaff, J.P. Riddle, L.B. Floyd and Tony Evans, and all who believed in the professional golfer he would become. “It’s quite an honor to be inducted into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame. It’s hard to imagine that all the time and energy I spent at playing a game I love would end up bestowing such an honor in my life. I still feel like North Carolina is home.”
And Fayetteville, too.
Bill Kirby Jr. can be reached at billkirby49@gmail.com or 910-624-1961.
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