More trophies -- and memories -- for the "Hall of Jay"

Last December when he was inducted into the South Carolina Golf Hall of Fame, the Champions Tour superstar Jay Haas related how he has a basement room at his home off the sixth tee at Thornblade Club in Greer where he keeps all the memorabilia of a long and successful 30-year-plus career in professional golf.

With more than a touch of irony, Haas referred to that room as the “Jay Haas Shrine.” If ever there was a player less enamored of his own achievements than most, it’s the Indiana native and former Wake Forest All-American; humility is much more comfortable for him than ego or pride.

But certain achievements elicit in Haas a well-deserved sense of pride. His Bobby Jones Award for service to golf, for one. His S.C. Hall of Fame portrait, for another. And now, a special place will be reserved — in what he referred to last Sunday at the “Hall of Jay” — for his second Senior PGA Championship, aka the Alfred S. Bourne Trophy.

When Haas won his first Senior PGA in 2006 at Oak Tree Country Club in Oklahoma, it was his first major title at any level. But he confessed to reporters on Sunday that the second such trophy is more special — for a number of reasons.

First and foremost is the fact it came at Oak Hill in Rochester, N.Y. It was on this same course — indeed, on the same 18th hole where he made a “routine” par Sunday to edge Bernhard Langer — that in 1995, Haas suffered one of the most disappointing moments of his life.

On the final day of that year’s Ryder Cup, Haas had rallied to win the 16th and 17th holes to keep alive his chances of eking out a draw, and a half-point that would’ve enabled the U.S. team to deadlock its European rivals. Instead, by his own admission feeling the pressure, Haas popped up his drive and lost the hole that ultimately cost the Americans their last chance (he wasn’t alone, though; former Wake Forest teammate Curtis Strange also gagged down the stretch, but Haas’ flop is what everyone remembers, including him).

Naturally, that was the topic du jour Sunday, and Haas admitted “absolutely” he was thinking about 1995 just before he smoked a stellar tee shot into the fairway he had missed 13 years earlier. The fact he needed to make that par “might make it even sweeter, the fact I had just a one-shot lead,” he said. When Haas sank his par putt from 2 feet, he let out a well-deserved sigh of relief.

“I kind of had a little chuckle to myself on the 18th tee,” he said. “It was like, well, you’ve been talking about this; it’s time to put up or shut up. You talked a good game about just getting up there and ripping it and all that stuff — and (darned) if I didn’t do it.”

But that 1995 memory, that exorcism of angst, was only part of Haas’ magical moment. As in most cases involving emotions and golf, this for Haas was less about trophies and patriotism, and more about friends and family.

Oak Hill not only is one of the great courses in America and in all of golf; it also is the home for 37 years of club professional Craig Harmon, part of the family that produced Masters champion Claude Harmon and his many accomplished sons — Craig; Billy, Haas’ occasional caddie and longtime friend; and the late Dick Harmon, mentor to many players including Haas’ Thornblade fellow member, Lucas Glover.

After discussing that 1995 Ryder Cup, Haas brightened as he talked about the idea that his name soon will go on Oak Hill’s Wall of Fame, one that brings together history and friendship and golf into one amazing shrine to the game.

“That might be the neatest thing of all,” Haas said. “I saw Craig earlier in the week, and they were talking about a time capsule that they have buried (by the course’s putting green, near the wall). And I tried not to let myself think that, if I could win here, I could get my plaque up there on that wall.”

All week, Haas said he soaked up the history (including his own) and the atmosphere of Oak Hill. Several times, “almost every day if I had a chance to get lunch, if I wasn’t playing late, I would get a plate and go up in (Craig Harmon’s) office and we would sit up there and just talk about nothing,” he said. “Just talkabout things and laugh.

“And Billy was there until Saturday morning. And that’s a great memory to have here. This will probably be my last championship here.”

Told the next event set for Oak Hill is the 2013 PGA Championship, Haas grinned. “Oh, 59 (his age then)? That will be a stretch.”

No matter. Haas now can return whenever he wants to the site of his major victory. The prospect left him absolutely gleeful; asked if there is any other course where he would want to win a major title more, he was succinct: “No.

“Maybe Winged Foot; that has a lot of Harmon history, too. ... But no, right at this moment, I can’t imagine (another).

“The history that is here; I don’t know if you guys (reporters) have been into the historical room or whatever they call it, but it’s got film, pictures of all the championships that have been here. Not many clubs have something like that.

“So yeah, that (18th hole) flag is going to look good on my wall.”

One other thing, too. For all the dramatic moments during his final round of 74, the one most will remember about Haas’ victory came in Saturday’s round, when he had to make a move toward the lead or be left in the dust. It came at the 17th hole, where, after driving into the left-hand rough, Haas unleashed a low, bouncing runner of a shot that rolled all the way to the green, then inexorably coasted across the green and into the cup for an improbable eagle 2.

“I was sitting on the 15th green (Saturday),” he said, “I was five strokes behind, and in a stretch of that (birdie) putt and playing 16 and 17, I’m tied for the lead.”

On Sunday, Haas lost strokes — but never his lead — going through that same stretch. What a shame, he said with a shake of his head, that that superb run, capped by that eagle, couldn’t have come on Sunday. It would’ve made things easier, for sure.

“It’s a shame, I guess, (that) it wasn’t (Sunday),” Haas said. “That would’ve really been something.”
Then he laughed again. “But it will definitely go down in the Hall of Jay.”

There’s a spot waiting in the basement, back home.

-- BOB GILLESPIE