Chip Beck might have difficulty making his way to Kemper Lakes for the PGA Championship.
”I love Chicago so much,” he said with a laugh, ”I really want to stay home.”
Beck became an official Chicagoan in June, when he married Karen Thompson of Hickory Hills and they bought a condo near Lincoln Park.
”Chicago has the nicest amenities I`ve ever seen in a city,” said Beck, who previously lived in North Carolina. ”My only concern right now is if I can get to the golf course.”
If he makes it to Hawthorn Woods, Beck will bring with him a streak of good fortune. Last year-his 10th on the tour-Beck finished second in earnings behind Curtis Strange with $926,817. ”It`s just hard to imagine,” he said,
”that a guy can make a million a year playing golf.”
Beck enters the PGA Championship with earnings of $512,843 in 1989. Before the British Open, which was the last tournament he played, Beck ranked sixth among scorers (69.63), eighth in par breakers and sixth in putting.
And after he wraps up his work at Kemper Lakes, he`ll be graced with yet another honor. He`ll join Strange and Mark Calcavecchia on the U.S. Ryder Cup team in England.
What makes his professional good fortune even sweeter, though, is that his personal good fortune has been equally bright.
In 1988, he met Karen at the Memorial Open in Ohio. At the time, he was divorcing his college sweetheart. They had been married 10 years and had two small children.
For Beck, the failed union was a tremendous blow.
”I know how good family life can be,” said Beck, who has seven sisters, two brothers and a mother and father he describes as the ”finest parents you can imagine.”
”My family was probably too ideal, if anything,” he continued. ”I just thought all marriages were great. I didn`t know some weren`t. I think when you have a lot of difficulties, you feel you can`t do anything right. You wonder if anything can be right again. You think life is going to be a lot of drudgery.
”Karen gave me the hope my life could be good again. She`s a very supportive person. We understood each other. We both come from large Catholic families. I knew that her faith was very strong and that she lived by it.”
Karen was working for AT&T as a special events coordinator when she and Chip met in the lobby of the tournament hotel. He was on the telephone and spotted her waiting for an elevator.
”He just put his call on hold,” Karen remembered, ”and walked over and said `I`d like to talk to you for a minute.` ”
Karen, whose job was to line up golfers to meet AT&T corporate types, assumed Beck was looking for a gig. She quickly summoned her boss and introduced them.
When Karen`s boss asked Chip what he`d like to do for AT&T, the golfer looked confused. As the boss riffled through a schedule of events, Chip turned to Karen and mouthed the words: ”Let`s go out for a drink.”
After the drink, he asked Karen to dinner. Every night. The following week, he told her he wanted to date her for the express purpose of marrying.
”When I first met Chip,” Karen noted, ”he was going through his divorce and his personality wasn`t where it is today. He had a lot of untapped resources. And divorce-you can`t go away unscathed. It`s going to affect you. He had rebounded from that, but he wasn`t real confident. For the first two or three months, I worked on that. He had so many good qualities, but he was shy about his goodness. He felt that because he was divorced, he wasn`t good. He`d always say things like, `I want to be` or `I should be,` and I`d say, `You are.` And I`d make him repeat it.”
On June 24, they were wed in Chicago. Instead of a honeymoon, they went to the Western Open, the Belgium Classic and the British Open.
While Chip toiled in Brussels, his wife went to Paris, indulging a desire to collect artifacts from around the world for the new home they`ve purchased in Fayetteville, N.C. They will spend winter there and head back to Chicago in the summer.
In the weeks leading up to the PGA Championship, the couple was busy decorating down South.
”It`s pretty exciting,” said Beck. ”Karen has great taste, let me tell you. She`s really creative and in our travels she picks up really wonderful stuff.”
There is a rug from Africa, tapestry from Brussels and crystal from Paris.
But in the midst of his excitement about the new Southern digs, Beck also had nostalgia for his Midwest attachments.
”Chip is having dreams about the drive down Sheridan Road,” Karen said with a laugh. ”I tell him, `Keep dreaming, honey.` I miss it, too. But it`s important that we put down roots in North Carolina. Chip`s mother has 16 grandchildren under the age of 7, with two more on the way. He feels he must foster the relationship of his children (from the previous marriage) with his side of the family. Things are a little slower down there. In Chicago, you walk fast, you talk fast and you drive fast. I feel the difference.”
She also feels the difference between her previous role as a career woman and her new role traveling the golf circuit.
”The first tournament I went to was the Atlanta Classic (last year), and I told Chip that I really felt like I was a foreigner,” Karen said. ”At the British Open last month, I was speaking with a man who just wrote a book about golf. I said, `These courses are really difficult because the golfers can`t find the shower heads.` Well, they`re sprinkler heads.
”I depend on the gallery to tell me things. I`m not up on Chip`s stats. I know his preshot routine and I know when he`s taking too much time. I know when he`s on-I can see it in his eyes. When he doesn`t have that look, I know what kind of day he`s going to have.”
So far, Beck has had plenty of good days.
”We`ve had a great year,” said Karen, ”and because of what he`s been through, he appreciates it tenfold.”
Things are so good, in fact, that Beck is already planning ahead. At the British Open, Beck asked Arnold Palmer if he thought the senior tour would still be around in 18 years when he hits 50.
”He (Palmer) really feels it is going to be bigger and stronger,” Beck said, ”and that`s interesting. Coming from the King, it has a lot of credence. You hope that it can be there. Golf is a wonderful game. It keeps you physically fit if you play it at a professional level, and there are a lot of nice people you meet. I hope I`m playing golf when I`m 70. I look forward to that.”
