school and started playing on the Northern
California amateur circuit while working as a
broker for E.F Hutton.
“I made it to the finals of the San Francisco
City Championship in the early 1980s before
losing to a guy named Aly Trompas, who had a
case of beer dangling from his pull cart,” Haag
recalls with a chuckle. “The more he drank, the
better he played. I was disappointed I lost, but it
put me on the radar screen a little and got me
thinking I could compete at a pretty high level.”
Indeed, he could. Haag qualified for his first
USGA event, the 1984 U.S. Amateur at Oak Tree
in Oklahoma, and he was on his way. “I really
enjoyed the feeling of adrenaline I got when I
played,” he says. “The pressure and the chal-
lenge excited me. And I seemed to get a little
better each year. Coming out of college, I was
not nearly good enough to even think about
turning pro. But as I started to do better after
school, I thought for a little bit about it. But I
would have had to give up my work as well as
my amateur golf, and I was having too much
fun doing both.”
So, Haag kept doing both. And doing them
well. He won his first NCGA Player of the Year
award in 1993, a year after winning the associa-
tion’s amateur championship for the first time,
and was named California Amateur of the Year
by the California Sports Writers, just ahead of
some kid named Tiger Woods. In the process,
Haag began to compile one of the more impres-
sive golf résumés in the land.
One of the most impressive things in that
résumé is Haag’s longevity, and the fact he
has been able to compete so well for so long in
such heady circles. Certainly, there have been
down years, when injuries took their toll and
child rearing issues made it difficult to properly
concentrate on the course. But those lapses
were few and far between.
“My passion and desire are as strong as
ever, and I have never enjoyed myself more,”
says Haag. “Golf doesn’t know how old you are.
I work hard, I am in great shape and I am a little
smarter than I used to be and a little better at
my course management. I feel like I am actual-
ly getting better, and that’s good because there
are still a lot of things I want to do.”
Like what?
“Like win a Mid-Am,” he says. “It’s one
tournament I thought I could win, but it hasn’t
happened, even though I’ve made the quarter-
finals four times and won a total of 23 matches.
It could still happen, though, and remember,
Randal Lewis won it last year at age 54, so it
shows the game can be a little ageless.”
Randy Haag is a little ageless, too. Which
means more and more people outside of the
Golden State will likely have that chance to get
to know him. l
