As Augusta recovers, amateur field grows
Hurricane Helene ravages Augusta region; U.S. Mid-Am champion Evan Beck gets in
Pine trees down in the patrons parking area at Augusta National (Eureka Earth)
Augusta National and the surrounding Central Savannah River Area are slowly digging out from the extreme damage wreaked by Hurricane Helene as it left devastation in its 500-mile trek across the southeast United States.
Widespread downed trees and power lines have left the region without power and water — a situation that is likely to extend for more than a week. Homes and neighborhoods have been severely impacted by the damage, posing an immense challenge over the coming months for the region to be ready to host the golf world in April for the Masters Tournament. Housing for patrons might be a major issue. Anyone with badges needs to plan accordingly.
Augusta National Golf Club is not immune to the ravages of Mother Nature, especially when a Category 4 hurricane from the Gulf of Mexico that was expected to follow Georgia’s Interstate 75 northward from Florida’s Big Bend ended up hooking eastward toward Augusta with tropical-storm force. Club chairman Fred Ridley acknowledged the damage to the club and the trauma the storm has inflicted upon its neighbors.
“Our Augusta community has suffered catastrophic and historic impact from Hurricane Helene,” Ridley said in a statement on Saturday. “We currently are assessing the effects at Augusta National Golf Club.
“In the meantime, our focus and efforts are foremost with our staff, neighbors and business owners in Augusta. Our thoughts and prayers are with them as well as everyone throughout Georgia and the Southeast who have been affected.”
Ridley didn’t offer any details of the club’s damage assessment, which includes the destruction of trees across the property including its famed Magnolia Lane and flooding of Rae’s Creek in Amen Corner. Neighboring Augusta Country Club — which sits on the other side of Amen Corner and is closed indefinitely — estimates that more than 600 trees are down on the golf course.
According to the National Weather Service, a wind gust of 82 mph was observed at Augusta Regional Airport when Helene blew through early Friday morning with sustained tropical-storm-force winds. First responders reported that trees across the region fell on many houses, cars and roads in the area. There was significant damage to neighborhoods near ANGC, with roads and neighborhoods from Aiken, South Carolina, to Thomson, Georgia, cut off by downed trees and mangled power lines.
More than 1.3 million residents in Georgia were blacked out by Hurricane Helene (1 million have had power restored), Gov. Brian Kemp said Monday when he toured the damage in Augusta — which is typically a haven that shelters coastal residents fleeing hurricanes instead of a victim. More typically, Atlantic and Gulf hurricanes damage mainly coastal Georgia counties and southern Georgia counties that border Florida.
“Literally, this hurricane, it’s like a 250-mile-wide tornado had hit,” said Kemp in a press conference outside the James Brown Arena in downtown Augusta. “To see the level of the destruction that a hurricane can do, in this community, being this far from Lowndes County or Echols County and the Florida line, is unprecedented.”
Georgia Power, the primary electricity provider in the state, sent out a sobering update to all of its customers on Tuesday saying it was still working on restoring power to the more than 300,000 who remained without it, most notably in Augusta, Savannah and Valdosta: “This hurricane has been the most destructive in our company’s history, and we recognize the immense and numerous difficulties it has brought to our customers and communities.
“Hurricane Helene caused historic damage to our infrastructure across the state. Initial estimates illustrating the extensive damage include:
8,000+ power poles that must be repaired or replaced
21,000+ spans of wire equivalent to approximately 1,000 miles
1,500+ transformers that will need to be replaced
3,200+ trees on power lines that must be removed or addressed to restore power.”
Evan Beck rolled over Bobby Massa 9&8 to win U.S. Mid-Amateur (Logan Whitton/USGA)
Beck joins amateur roster for 2025 Masters
While there are clearly bigger and more important issues to deal with just two weeks ahead of the club’s opening and six months before the 2025 Masters, the field for the season’s first major continues to take shape. Six of the beds available for amateurs in the Crows Nest will be filled by the end of this week’s Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship in Japan. The Latin Amateur Amateur champion in January will fill the seventh and final amateur spot in the 2025 field.
The fifth amateur and 70th qualifier is Evan Beck, a 34-year-old portfolio manager from Virginia Beach, Va. A year after getting soundly beaten by Stewart Hagestad in the 2023 U.S. Mid-Amateur championship at Sleepy Hollow in New York, Beck breezed to a 9&8 victory over Bobby Massa in the 2024 U.S. Mid-Amateur in his home state at Kinloch Golf Club near Richmond.
The rewards of last week’s victory — an invitation to both the Masters and U.S. Open next summer at Oakmont — were never far from Beck’s mind.
“I’ve been thinking about it every day,” he said immediately after closing out Massa on the 28th hole of the scheduled 36-hole final. “Try not to get emotional, try to stay in the moment, and hit one shot at a time. My caddie, Mikey Moyers, did a really good job of keeping me in it … to try to like stay thinking about what we’re doing and not thinking about what comes with this.”
Beck’s third career USGA championship final was the complete opposite of his previous experiences. He lost 10&8 to Cameron Peck in the finals of the 2008 U.S. Junior Amateur at Shoal Creek and last year fell 7 down through 21 holes to Hagestad before clawing his way back to a deceiving 3&2 loss.
Beck is the fourth player in U.S. Mid-Amateur history to reach consecutive finals, joining Jim Stuart (1990-91), George Zahringer (2001-02) and Nathan Smith (2009-10). Zahringer is the only other in that foursome to have lost and then returned to win the next year as Beck did. Smith, who won a record four titles, and Stuart each won both of their consecutive finals.
Beck was the co-medalist with Argentina’s Segundo Oliva Pinto at Kinloch and Independence golf courses, making him the first medalist/co-medalist to win the U.S. Mid-Amateur since Scott Harvey in 2014. After playing at Wake Forest, Beck gave the professional ranks a shot before back issues derailed that dream and he had his amateur status reinstated in 2018.
“I’m playing probably the best golf of my life, so maybe if I stuck with it, I could have made some money,” he said of his short professional journey. “Happy with today, with this week, and it’s really special to do it so close to home. Looking forward to what’s next.”
After getting so close a year ago, Beck is relishing the chance to finally compete in his first major championship.
“Last year was pretty brutal. It wasn’t even really close,” he said.
“To get all the way there and come up short is gut-wrenching. To be able to push through and prove that you can do it to yourself, more than anything, it’s pretty awesome.”
Evan Beck, José Luis Ballester, Noah Kent, Jacob Skov Olesen, Hiroshi Tai and 2023 Masters low amateur Neal Shipley (Logan Whitton, Chris Keane/USGA; Oisin Keniry/R&A; C. Morgan Engel/NCAA Photos; Joel Marklund/ANGC)
While at Wake Forest, Beck didn’t get the chance to play with his teammates when they were invited to play Augusta because he was out west that week. He’ll try to follow 2024 low amateur Neal Shipley and join Hagestad (2017) as the only Mid-Am champs to ever claim low-am honors.
Immediately after his win, Beck hadn’t had time to think about who he might play practice rounds with next April at Augusta.
“I don't know. Maybe some of the Wake guys – Will Zalatoris, Webb (Simpson), I don’t know, we’ll see,” he said. “Getting ahead of myself.”
Zalatoris and Cameron Young are the only former Wake Forest golfers currently qualified for the 2025 Masters.
“Pretty wild. It obviously hasn’t sunk in yet,” he said of those major invites he’s dreamed of his entire life. “You’ve seen me cry like three times; I’m probably going to do some more of that later. Yeah, it’s going to be crazy. Hopefully we’ll be able to get some people to come down and have a great week.”
Beck joins U.S. Amateur winner José Luis Ballester of Spain and runner-up Noah Kent, British Amateur champion Jacob Skov Olesen of Denmark and NCAA individual champion Hiroshi Tai of Singapore in the Masters field.