It's become a bit of a ritual here at Golf Masters HQ. Every Monday morning, when the fax arrives with the official results from our American tournament, the first name we look for is Chip Beck.

We start at the top, scanning our way down through the final placings but it usually takes a while before we find him. You see, until last weekend, he had played in 16 Golf Masters' tournaments and had missed a grand total of . . . 16 Golf Masters' cuts.

But, for one brief moment last Monday morning, there were scenes of wild celebrations here at HQ. "Did you see Chip finished on the same score as Tiger Woods," announced one of the team. "YES - he did it, he made the cut," the rest of us hollered emotionally. "Eh, no - Tiger missed the first cut of his professional career."

Gloom, despair. So, that's 17 Golf Masters' tournaments so far for Chip and 17 missed cuts - which at least makes him our most consistent player of the year. He's our ninth lowest scorer in the competition, with £9,250, but the eight below him have barely played in any tournaments at all in the past eight months (David Feherty has played in none). There is one American tournament to go, next week's Texas Open, but we don't yet know whether Chip will turn up.

It will come as a relief to know that Chip has actually made three cuts in 1997, but they were all in non-Golf Masters tournaments at the beginning of the year. So his "real-life" earnings since January amount to $10,653 (for shares of 45th, 56th place and 58th at the Phoenix Open, when he had his only sub-70 round of the year). His bumper Golf Masters' cheque came in March when he received £750 for missing the cut at the Players' Championship, a bonus tournament.

"On Tour Beck is known as "Mr Positive" for his seemingly unquashible optimism," says a PGA profile of Chip on the Internet. We suspect the optimism of his 153 employers, who paid out £2 million for the American back in February, is very close to being quashible at this point.