Chet Latawiec began his golf career as a caddie at the now-defunct Hilltop Golf Club in Columbia Heights in 1930 making 40 cents a loop. By 15 Latawiec won his first tournament, the 1935 Twin Cities Rotary Club Junior Championship, and three years later he won the Minnesota State Junior Championship. Latawiec won two State Public Links championships, two Twin Cities Amateurs, and with partner Gene Hanson, the inaugural MGA Four-Ball Championship (1960). During an extraordinary 18-year stretch (1950 and 1972), he played in 17 U.S. Amateur Public Links championships.
After service in WWII Latawiec founded Chet's Shoes (there are now three Chet's Shoe Stores). He always believed that there should be something at stake whenever he was on the course, and one of his mottos was: "You play or you pay."
