Haddad Tracks U.S. Open From The Rocky Mountains

. A prominent member of the Colorado Section of the Professional Golfers Association of America, Haddad has been using his spare time this week to look in on a tournament he’d enjoy playing in — the United States Open Championship at Cherry Hills Country Club, where he watched the second round with his wife.

“My philosophy is not to look back,” said the former Norwood athlete, “but sometimes I get to thinking about the old days. Then all I have to do is look around here and see what I have here, and I know I’m in the right place.” Haddad directed the golf program at a busy club in nearby Aurora, where he lived with his family until late last winter. He’s now in an in-between position, anticipating another move next year. On his last visit to his hometown, Ralph recalled he looked with amazement at The Country Club of Norwood, then under construction on Route 1. “That was where we used to skate and I had a place there where I used to thumb rides,” he said. “They told me Frank Simoni was building the golf course. I know Frank and I wondered how the heck he was going to do it in such a low area. But I’ve heard he did it. I’ve also heard about the changes at my old Walpole Country Club and the construction of the new one. It’s just amazing to hear about the continued growth of golf in that part of the state.”

Haddad was a dominant figure in the school and junior competition of 25 years ago when men like Paul Barkhouse, Jay Dolan, and Charley Volpone were among his opponents. He played in the bigger events too, and he was a point-winner for Walpole’s four-ball teams with teammates like John Woloshyn and Bill Murray. Golf, he has found, has been his link with his past. “The link is in seeing fellows like those here and hearing about things going on in golf back there,” he said. “There’s a continuity to the game that the other games lack. It’s just playing like a great course abodes.” Haddad began college at Holy Cross before entering the service, and while he foresook football and basketball at the college level, he won 24 of 25 matches for the golf team. He has bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Adams State College of Alamosa and when he finishes his thesis he’ll have a doctorate from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

He had his choice of schools and he chose Colorado for both. Colorado competitions have put him on Cherry Hills, where he led the local qualifying for the U.S. Open in 1969 with a 68-70. “I told Hale Irwin afterward I’d see him in Houston,” Ralph recalled. “Then I missed in the sectional qualifying games.” Reflecting on the ongoing major tournament, where Jack Nicklaus was chipping onto the ninth green within a stroke or two of the leaders, Haddad added, “This is a truly fine course. We’ve had some good tournaments here and I’ve had some good days here. They haven’t done a great deal to the course, really, for this tournament. The 18th hole is doing a lot of damage but heck, it always does.” Last fall, he spent a lot of time with Charley Volpone at the PGA Club Professional Championship in Pine Mountain, Georgia, noting, “That’s half the fun of making the tournaments. But the U.S. Open I really wanted to play in was at The Country Club in 1963. I tried but just missed.”

Archival Note: This article has been dynamically reconstructed from the original public record print archives of the Patriot Ledger