At the 2026 ShopRite LPGA Classic in Galloway, New Jersey, an Israeli flag sat at the cap of the tournament’s first-round leader board. Laetitia Beck went bogey-free, shooting 63 to sit alone at the top of the leaderboard after round one. This was also the lowest round of her professional career. Let’s find out everything about Laetitia Beck, including her roots, her career, and what drives her.

Who is Laetitia Beck?

Laetitia Beck was born on February 5th, 1992, in Antwerp, Belgium, but her family relocated to Caesarea, Israel, a town midway between Tel Aviv and Haifa on the Mediterranean coast, when she was only six. They shifted there because it was the only city in Israel with an 18-hole golf course. This is the Caesarea Golf Club, and she grew up just walking distance from it.

Both of her parents, Liliane and Jean Claude, were recreational golfers. They introduced Laetitia and her twin sister Olivia to tennis at the age of eight and golf at the age of nine. She also has an older sister, Leora, and a brother, Yoni. All the children grew up in an active and sports-minded family, and Beck picked up every sport that came her way. Basketball, soccer, tennis, and golf are all featured.

“I’ve been playing sports since a very young age. I was very active, doing so many different sports,” she shared in an interview with Golf Digest.

However, that changed when she was 12 years old.

Laetitia Beck’s Early Life and Introduction to Golf

A prominent Israeli sports commentator and a close friend of the family had been playing with Beck regularly and pushing through her development. It is through that encouragement that a head pro at her club eventually asked her mother to sign her up for the Israeli ladies’ championship. She broke 90 in the final round and won in a playoff.

“Somehow, I ended up winning out of nowhere against this tiny 12-year-old girl with a trophy. It was strange and obviously exciting,” Beck recalled.

Inspired by that result, Beck dropped every other sport and focused entirely on golf. She became a scratch player within a year and, at 13, won the national title by “30 or 40 shots.” The same year, she traveled to Scotland to compete at the Duke of York Young Champions Trophy and won second place.

Growing up in Caesarea, Beck had limited competition to measure herself against. She shares that Israel only had two golf clubs at the time, her home course with its 18-hole and a nine-hole course elsewhere in the country. From then on, her family decided to enroll her in a professional academy.

At the age of 18, Beck left her home and enrolled at the IMG Academies Pendleton School in Bradenton, Florida. It’s the same training ground that has produced big LPGA Tour players like Paula Creamer and Jessica Korda, and Laetitia Beck spent four years there and graduated in 2010. Interestingly, when she turned 18, she enlisted in the Israeli army and completed the required military exams. However, the army designated her a sports prodigy and postponed her service until after her golf career. She then enrolled at Duke University, where she played from 2010 to 2014 and majored in psychology.

In September 2011, the Caesarea Golf Club allowed her to compete against men rather than women in the Israeli Open, and she became the first woman to win the event outright. At Duke, she was also named the ACC Rookie of the Year in 2011 and was a two-time NCAA All-American in 2013 and 14, contributing to Duke’s championship victory.

Laetitia Beck’s professional career journey

Beck turned professional in 2014, debuting at the Women’s British Open, and in December 2014, she became the first Israeli to earn full LPGA Tour status. On the tour, Beck held full status in 2015 and 2016. Then she lost her full status after the 2018 season and moved to the Epson Tour in 2019. She made all 17 cuts and recorded top 10 finishes 5 times that year. A major milestone came in March 2025.

On March 8, 2025, at the Atlantic Beach Classic on the Epson Tour, Beck finally collected her first professional win. She displayed a splendid game as she shot rounds of 71, 68, and 66 for an eight-under 205.

“It does show that I’m capable of playing well. Often, I go to an event unsure and not so confident with my game, and I always try to figure out something. So the good thing is that I’m a feel player. Even though I’m technical, I still feel. And I’m able to find a feel that works for the week. So I’m hoping that by winning this week, it’ll help me stay calmer under pressure.”

By September 2025, Beck secured a top-15 spot in the Race to the Card Standings, earning her LPGA Tour card for 2026. She is now back on the main tour and has wasted no time making her presence felt.

Laetitia Beck’s Lifestyle, Faith & Her Culture

Laetitia Beck loves her country and her religion, and she has not let a single moment slip by to show her support for both. One of the small ways she does that is on the tour; she always wears a Star of David necklace that has a symbol stitched on her golf bag as well. And they are in her country’s colors, Israeli blue and white. Being the only Israeli golfer out here, she wants people to know where she comes from. She keeps kosher on her tour and has been open about her faith and guiding decisions beyond golf. She has often taken moments at her peak milestones to address that the win is for her country.

One such instance was the 2016 Rio Olympics. Beck was told by Israel’s Olympic Committee that she was responsible for organizing everything by herself, from finding someone to make her uniform to ordering her own bag, because the committee knew little about golf, and she had been open about the knowledge of golf in her country before. She proudly represented her country as the first-ever Israeli golfer to compete at the Olympics, and she tied 31st at the Games.

“My goal was to represent not only the country but also the culture, the Jewish culture. On the side, it says Israel in Hebrew and in English, the Star of David pattern, the Israeli flag, and my name right there in blue and white,” she said at the Olympics.

She has often shared her moments like these on her Instagram as well.

“After playing the Mizuho American Open at the Mountain Ridge Country Club very recently, which is also a Jewish club, she wrote, ‘Playing at a Jewish club is so special to me.’ Feeling the support all week and hearing ‘Am Israeli Chai’ was incredibly powerful. This is one of the reasons I love playing on tour: to represent, especially knowing I’m the only one representing Israel and Jewish culture out there.”

All in all, Laetitia Beck has been very open and respectful of her country and her people and the family she comes from. Her presence on social media reflects her life on tour and her competition weeks, and she has often been candid about the identity she carries everywhere she goes.