SEA ISLAND, GEORGIA | With a lipped out 4-foot par putt gone begging on the final hole of Saturday’s second round, Evan Beck grimaced with disdain and bent at the waist. When he took off his cap to expose his billowing smoke of brown hair, Beck faced the gray Atlantic Ocean for a moment to gather his thoughts and then shook the hands of playing partners Garrett Rank and Jackson Van Paris.
This was serious, grind-for-every-inch golf.
Beck, one of eight mid-amateurs invited to compete in the prestigious Jones Cup at Ocean Forest Golf Club this past weekend, opened with an 8-over-par 80 in his first round and stumbled out of the gates early on day two as the dipping temperatures and chaotic winds swirled around the Rees Jones layout. But as a point of pride, Beck began to string successful swings together. He birdied the ninth and 13th amidst four pars. As the afternoon progressed, Beck hit every green and picked off pars on difficult holes. He looked in complete control, displaying the form he flashed as one of the standout mid-ams of 2021.
A par on the 18th would get him in at 73, well below the day’s scoring average of 76, but he pushed his tee ball into a thicket of native grass. After several minutes of meticulously removing loose impediments and trying to manufacture a swing around a tree infringing upon his backswing, he hit a marvelous recovery followed by a deft pitch to four feet.
Every golfer wants that last one, especially to go bogey-free over their last 11 holes.
It just slipped by, but the climb back signified something bigger.
For Beck, playing in the Jones Cup for the first time since 2013, every moment in a tournament like this is worth battling for. The last time he was here, Beck played for Wake Forest where he was a two-time All-Atlantic Coast Conference performer and led the Demon Deacons in stroke average (71.8) his senior season. That college career wasn’t an aberration; the Virginia Beach native quickly rose through the recruiting rankings late in his high school days when he finished runner-up in the 2008 U.S. Junior Amateur and then won both the Junior Players Championship and AJGA Golf Pride Championship later that year. The son of a scratch golfer, Gary, Beck’s swing and demeanor reminded many of another Wake product, Webb Simpson.
Beck could really play, until he couldn’t.
After gaining status on the PGA Tour Latinoamérica shortly after finishing college, Beck was hitting balls on the range one cold morning in his home base of Bluffton, South Carolina, when he felt the middle of his back pop. There was no way he could continue.
There have, on rare occasions, been players who overcome severe back injuries coming out of college to reach the highest level of professional golf. Patrick Cantlay is one of them, and he still has to loosen his back with a tedious routine prior to every round. Joseph Bramlett wandered through the back-injury wilderness for a few years before changing his swing and reaching the PGA Tour.
In Beck’s case, the injury tore his professional golf dreams apart.
“It was brutal. I didn’t know if I was going to be able to play again, and it was a dark time,” Beck told Global Golf Post. “It took awhile to figure out what was going on. I went to doctors in South Carolina, back up in Virginia, flew out to Texas … we couldn’t figure it out. Where I’m from in Virginia Beach, it’s a big Navy town, and one of the Navy Seals from the neighborhood I grew up in took his team out to St. Louis and he recommended I go see a doctor there. I was willing to do anything to figure out what was wrong.
“The doctor there got me straight, but it had been a year and a half of searching. He got me back playing within six months, but it was basically two years off without swinging a club. I started playing mini tours again in 2015, trying to make it through Monday qualifiers, got into a few Web.com (now Korn Ferry) Tour events but didn’t make the cut. … Those two years were pretty much gone, and guys keep coming out of college bigger, stronger, hitting it farther.”
Before it could even really start, Beck’s career was over at 27 years old. His last foray was a failed Monday qualifier for the 2017 RSM Classic.
Brinson Paolini, a childhood friend who played golf at Duke and gave pro golf a shot alongside Beck, saw the agony up close.
“He was traveling around to these doctors, trying to figure out a way to play through the pain,” Paolini said. “And at the same time, I’m off teeing it up in these tournaments. My heart just bled for him. Golf is a hard enough game when you’re healthy, but when you feel like you can’t get out of bed, you can’t swing … it was just a really tough break for him.”
“When he told me he got in the Jones Cup, I was so pumped because that is a hard invite even as a college player let alone being a mid-am. It’s just a really, really cool thing.”
Brinson Paolini
And who could have blamed Beck, now 31 years old, if he decided to give up golf altogether to help ensure his health moving forward? When he moved back to Virginia Beach and found a job as a financial analyst at Vantage Consulting Group, it couldn’t have been expected that he would jump right back into golf given his history of physical pain. However, after applying for his amateur status immediately and waiting a year and a half where he barely played any golf, Beck became a reinstated amateur with the goal of playing meaningful golf at that level.
“Having that time off, it made me appreciate getting to play again and having fun with it,” Beck said.
This past week in Sea Island really represented something special for Beck when it comes to where his golfing life has taken him. He got back into the Jones Cup purely on merit. In 2021, Beck won the Virginia Mid-Am, the State Open of Virginia and the Eastern Amateur. Winning the State Open was a particularly emotional accomplishment given that Beck had first won the tournament back in 2010 when he was a sophomore at Wake Forest.
Beck’s swing has evolved over time from more of a one-plane effort as a junior golfer – which potentially put more pressure on his back – to a swing that is now more around his body. It’s probably the best his swing has ever looked, and he’s also found consistency on the greens putting with the arm lock method and using the claw.
But even with that, just to play without pain, Beck has to work on his back health prior to each round.
“He goes through a very extensive warm-up before he plays and he has to do exercises daily just to stay healthy,” Paolini said. “Given that, it’s just incredible what he accomplished last year. He works a full-time job, he’s trying to stay healthy and all the tournaments he won last year, it’s incredible. When he told me he got in the Jones Cup, I was so pumped because that is a hard invite even as a college player let alone being a mid-am. It’s just a really, really cool thing.”
It’s been nine years, and a lot has changed since his senior year of college when he played the Jones Cup as prep for a future pro career. Beck was among the elder statesmen in the field this time around – “which is wild to think about,” he says – and it’s now a welcome badge of honor to battle gruesome conditions on a tough, tree-lined golf course with penalties constantly lurking.
It wasn’t so much about where he finished, although he showed he was once again capable of great golf on this stage. It was always about the grind, proving to himself he could play like he once did.
E-Mail SEAN