Overflowing With Golf Tradition Wake Forest golf is filled with legendary names and unforgettable performances By John Dell America fourth straight years. Hallberg said. "We kidded a lot with coach and with your going." Perhaps the best thing about the Wake (1979), Strange (1974), Jay Haas (1975) some of his methods, but he was good for Just how deep were the Deacons back Forest golf tradition, according to several also won the individual NCAA title. Bill me. I can only speak for myself but he was in the mid-70s? Haddock said that at one players, is how much better the stories get Haas won a school record 10 tournaments perfect for me. We all need a little disci- point his B team went to a tournament and as the years pass. and set numerous other records along the pline at that age and he knew how to get wound up winning by 20 shots. That tour- It's hard to argue that when it comes to way and will likely become the next former golf, the Demon Deacons had one of the Deacon to star on the PGA Tour. best traditions in all of college athletics "The tradition means a lot to me," Bill which began ever so innocently late 1940s Haas said upon graduation earlier this and early '50s when a hard-hitting Arnold summer. "There have been so many times Palmer wasn't famous yet. That tradition people ask me where I go to school and really got going when Jesse Haddock was when I say Wake Forest they say 'That's a named coach in 1961 and from there he great golf school.' And then when I say I nurtured the program into one of the most play golf for them they automatically think powerful and dominant to have ever com- you are a great golfer." peted in the ACC. Two years ago the ACC came out with A tradition has to have great players, its 50 greatest athletes in each sport and national championships and more impor- several former Wake Forest greats were tantly, a long stretch of dominance that is left out of that list, but that's a testament to unmatched. The Deacons had it all during how dominant the program had been. It Haddock's tenure and it's something that would be hard enough to name the top 50 his numerous former players say was golfers of all-time at Wake Forest. something to behold. When you consider the Deacons first There were three national champi- real great stretch of talented teams took onships (1974, '75 and '86) and countless place from 1962 to '72 when they finished All-Americas who went on to have, or are in the top 10 in the NCAA Championship still having, outstanding careers in the nine times, that's when the tradition start- pros. And there were several All-Americas ed rolling. and key players who didn't play golf pro- "I was very fortunate and people fessional but were just as important to believed in me," Haddock said recently. Haddock's motto of team play. "But I never thought of myself as the main How did such a small school build such reason we won a lot. I was probably more a deep tradition that some would say has self-conscious of other things in the way carried even though some of the lean the golf program evolved and the way the times? One reason it has probably been players looked at me." such a success was it never got lost in Haddock, who is 77 and lives in other sports, the way golf can sometimes Winston-Salem in the winter and get lost at much bigger school. And then Grandfather Mountain during the summer, there's the family atmosphere that sur- retired in 1992 with his legacy was rounds the program. cemented as one of the best college golf "Everybody looks out for one another," coaches of all time. Haddock acknowl- said Jay Sigel, who wound up being the edges he didn't know much about the first recipient of the Arnold Palmer scholar- swing, but when it came to knowing what ship and was on one of Haddock's first made his players tick, he was a physiolog- great teams. "Everybody cares for the ical guru. other guy and we all come back often and He helped guide the Deacons to 15 of I'm amazed at how well the school does the school's 18 ACC titles. The 18 titles are with academics, socially, athletically and the most by any ACC school, despite not everything else." winning won since 1989. There are names such as Palmer, Sigel, "When you look back at where the tra- Lanny Wadkins, Curtis Strange, Jay Haas, dition started the first star and all of that it Scott Hoch, Billy Andrade, Len Mattiace, had to be Arnold," said Strange, who was Joe Inman, and Leonard Thompson and part of what many consider the greatest most recently, Jay's son, Bill, who are college team of all time in 1975. "Yes, probably the most well-known of the former Arnold was our first star and our brightest Deacons. But the list of other great players star, but the way I look at it, that tradition could go on and on, such as Jack Lewis, doesn't start overnight. And it doesn't start Ken Folkes, Gary Hallberg, Chris Kite, Tim with one player, but an entire program with Straub, Eddie Pearce, Jim Simons, Billy many people. And I think that's where Joe Patton, Jerry Haas, Ronny Thomas, Coach Haddock comes into it because he Robert Wrenn, Bob Byman, David Thore did more than anybody." and countless others. Strange said that Haddock's genius An incredible 58 players since 1964 was he got in a player's head and it usual- were named on one of the three All- ly worked. America teams or honorable mention, "Everybody was different, but he had a including Hallberg, who was first team All- way of bringing out your best," Strange twenty-eight wake forest golf 2004-05 Alumni Spotlight: Bill Haas Carries On Golfing Family Tradition By A.J. CARR, Raleigh News & Observer (June 1, 2004) It was the second round of last summer's Porter Cup tournament, and Bill Haas was hankering to sink one more birdie putt. But on the 18th hole, he got a bad break, took a bogey -- and settled for a 60. "I said, 'If you can be disappointed with a 60, I am,' " Haas moaned. Then he added, "But it was hard to be too mad." The Wake Forest senior pursues lofty goals and reaches most of them by routinely firing low scores. The son of PGA Tour veteran Jay Haas has shot in the 60s a total of 23 times in 38 rounds and placed among the top 10 in 11 of 13 tournaments this season. That earned Haas the Ben Hogan Award as the nation's top collegiate golfer and cast him in the favorite's role at the NCAA Championships starting today in Hot Springs, Va. His lament is that Wake did not qualify as a team. The only area team to advance to the championship is North Carolina, which won a playoff against N.C. State to get the final East Regional berth on May 22. Bill already has won 10 career college tournaments, the most ever for a Wake Forest golfer - - more than Arnold Palmer, Curtis Strange, Scott Hoch, Gary Hallberg or Lanny Wadkins. "That makes me realize I lived up to the Wake standard," said Haas, who grew up in Greer, The 1954 Wake Forest golf team, which included Arnold Palmer (back row, far right), played in S.C., and always wanted to play for the Deacons. "Those guys became famous on the tour. That the first year of Atlantic Coast Conference competition. gives me motivation." Haas plays golf like a guy who's late for a date, sometimes cruising 18 holes in less than 2 nament politely asked Haddock the next golf coach at the time, that I went to Wake 1/2 hours. Along with speed, his game sparkles with style and substance. He can tame long par 5s with smoking drives that average 290 yards. His chipping and put- year he could bring just one team. There Forest my first year and that had a ting bear a champ's touch. And his savvy course management has enabled him to turn some was probably not a better stretch of domi- tremendous impact on my life," Palmer potential 73s into 70s, or 70s into 67s. nance overall in the program than the mid- said. "And it still has an impact on my life But not always. On one rare day, he skied to a 79. 70s where at one point Strange, Haas and even today." "He has matured with his game,'' said Wake coach Jerry Haas, who is Bill's uncle. "He was a Hoch were all teammates. But in fact Hoch, Palmer started the first scholarship for little impatient at first, tried to make birdies on every hole. He's getting a little more patience, not a Raleigh native who ranks in the top 20 on golfers at the school in the 1960s by start- so frazzled when things don't go well." the PGA Tour in career money, was on the ing the Buddy Worsham scholarship. But things usually go pretty well because, as Jerry Haas pointed out: "He drives it straight, has B team his freshman year when the Later, an Arnold Palmer scholarship was tremendous length, plays smart, makes a lot of putts, chips and is a good bunker player.