With a few starts to retain Tour status, 43-year-old prepared to turn the page.
This article originally appeared in the November issue of NCGA Golf Magazine
By Nick Lozito
James Hahn’s future on the PGA Tour has been made quite clear.
“It’s win or retire,” the Alameda native stated without a hint of sarcasm or jest during a practice round for the Procore Championship in Napa this past September. Hahn at the time sat around 200th on the points list, needing his first win since 2016 to gain worthwhile status. With a 10-year-old daughter back home in Arizona, Hahn’s patience for the golf grind is wearing thin.
“She's a heck of a dancer,” Hahn, 43, proudly states of daughter Kailee, who started playing flag football as well. “I missed out on a lot with her. I'm just trying to be the best dad and husband I can be.”
Hahn is among the greatest East Bay golfers of all time, a list that includes 1964 British Open winner and NCGA Hall of Famer Tony Lema. Hahn grew up on Lou Galbraith Golf Links (today Metropolitan GL) near the Oakland Airport, where his father, Philip, managed the driving range after immigrating from South Korea when James was two. James and older brother Tom shagged golf balls into the night.
“He was a lot better than I was growing up,” James said of Tom, who played at UC Davis and served as James’ caddie in Napa. “He had the strength, he had the accuracy, a great short game. It made me want to get better in practice and try to beat him. It wasn’t until maybe high school that we were pretty neck-and-neck and I was hitting the ball far enough to where we could actually compete. But when someone’s a year and a half older than you, 30 yards is a lot of distance to make up.”
Hahn credits the strong winds at Galbraith (now Metropolitan Golf Links) and Monarch Bay in San Leandro with improving his short game. “A lot of bump-and-runs,” he recalls. His first golf instructor, Gene Mixon, moved to Alabama but kept in contact with James as he entered Alameda High. “He said, ‘James, you know enough about your swing. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. Don't listen to all the haters. Just go ahead and swing your swing.’
“I just kind of kept that advice.”
Hahn played at Cal from 2000-02, just before the Bears won the 2004 NCAA team title. In 2013, after years of playing on mini tours and working different sales jobs, Hahn qualified for the PGA Tour.
In 2015 at historic Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles, Hahn became the first Cal Golden Bear to win a PGA Tour event, beating Paul Casey and Dustin Johnson in a playoff. He won again in 2016, beating Roberto Castro in a playoff at Quail Hollow in North Carolina. That year, Hahn rose to a career-best 52nd in the world. His best finish at a major came at the 2017 PGA Championship where he tied for 17th at Quail Hollow. Hahn nearly had a third Tour win at the 2018 Sony Open in Hawaii, but fell to Patton Kizzire on the sixth playoff hole.
“I'm happy to have rode that train for such a long time,” Hahn said of a career that has earned him more than $12 million. “But I get it, golf is evolving.”
Evolving to keep star players from bolting to the rival LIV Tour, leading the PGA Tour to create a Signature event series with $20 million purses and relegating remaining players to lower-tier events with smaller payouts and fewer FedEx Cup points.
“It's what the fans want,” Hahn realizes. “I'm obviously not a top player. So if that means getting rid of guys like me, you know, if the TV ratings support it, then I'm okay with that.”
On the fourth tee in Sonoma, Hahn and practice-round partner Tom Johnson bantered about the rise of YouTube golf. Johnson, the 44-year-old teaching pro at Meadow Club, later foraged for berries on the suggestion of Monday qualifier Corey Pereira of El Dorado Hills, the baby of the group at 30 and an NCGA alum.
Earlier in a fairway bunker, Hahn mulled over his shot while the group playing ahead was putting. Hahn switched clubs. The approach fell short and ran down the hill. “That’s what happens when you overthink,” Hahn sighs to brother Tom.
Competition on Tour is only getting tougher.
“When I turned pro,” Hahn said, “it would take you three or four years to learn how to be a pro and make it on Tour and win a Tour event. Now, there are college players who are ready to win on the PGA Tour next season. That's how ready they are.”
Hahn said technology is a driving force, recalling a time he was fitted for steel shafts while in college.
“There's no way in hell that a 17- or 18-year-old kid should be using a steel-shafted 3-wood and driver. It’s not like I was Tiger Woods and swinging at 130 mph. They just didn’t know any better. We were the experiment in the 1990s. Now these club companies have it figured out. You can match the equipment with talent level and there’s a lot of talent out there.”
Through September, Hahn’s best finish in the 2025 season was a tie for 34th place in Puerto Rico. His chances at winning in Napa took a blow when top-ranked Scottie Scheffler and nine of his U.S. Ryder Cup teammates entered the field as a tuneup to face the Europeans at Bethpage Black. Scheffler went on to win the event.
“It’s always exciting,” Hahn said of competing. “Especially when you know you’re counting the number of PGA Tour events left. It’s win or retire, and there’s not much middle ground there because the Tour is so stacked with talented players.”
Scheffler prevailed in Napa while Hahn missed the cut. As Hahn is aware, the clock is beginning to tick.
“It wasn’t the dream to make it on the PGA Tour,” Hahn said. “Growing up in the Bay Area, you don’t think of things like that because no one had really done it before. Golf was secondary. (At Galbraith) it was nice to go out and have free reign of the range and chipping green and putting green.”
These days, it’s just nice to be home.
Should we switch it to Metropolitan Golf Links?