Lydia Ko now stands one point away from qualifying for the LPGA Hall of Fame. She’d be the 35th member of the LPGA Hall, nine of which are honorary members. Only 25 players have met the Hall’s requirements.
The LPGA Hall remains one of the most exclusive in all of sports. Players must reach 27 points to get in: (one point for each regular LPGA victory; two for a major win; one point each for the LPGA Rolex Player of the Year and Vare Trophy awards; and one point for an Olympic gold medal).
In addition to having 27 points, players must also either win an LPGA major, Vare Trophy or Player of the Year honors.
The 27-point threshold was actually lowered in the late 1990s when it looked like some of the greatest to ever play the game weren’t going to get in under the old system that required 30 LPGA victories with two major championships, or 35 with one major, or 40 with no majors.
Even so, there are a number of players even hard-core fans might be surprised aren’t in the LPGA Hall, though many are in the World Golf Hall of Fame.
Here’s a list of 10 decorated players still on the outside looking in:
“Sometimes I feel like I was kind of like the forgotten one.”
Sandra Palmer was standing in the pro shop at Shadow Hills Golf Club in Indio, California, on Wednesday when her phone rang. Palmer, who gives lessons at the club and works as an ambassador of sorts, recognized the number and took the call outside.
“I know if you don’t win,” she said, “they never call you.”
What had she won? Well, a spot in the World Golf Hall of Fame, news that brought tears to her eyes.
When Palmer walked back into the pro shop and shared that she’d be part of the 2024 Induction Class, the head pro at Shadow Hills arranged for a toast of sparkling cider. Palmer’s phone has been lighting up ever since, and she’s just tickled about it.
“It was very very emotional for me,” she said. “To feel the excitement that people who have known me have felt.”
Golfweek caught up with Palmer on the morning of her 80th birthday to talk about this lifetime achievement:
The induction ceremony will be June 10, 2024, at Pinehurst and will coincide with the U.S. Open.
Padraig Harrington, Tom Weiskopf, Sandra Palmer, Johnny Farrell and Beverly Hanson will join the remaining seven of the 13 LPGA Founders in the World Golf Hall of Fame Class of 2024, it was announced on Wednesday.
Harrington has 21 victories worldwide, including three majors. He was a part of six Ryder Cup teams and he was the captain of the 2020 European squad.
“This is very exciting, obviously a huge honor,” said Harrington. “It’s somewhat humbling. At this stage of my life, it gives me some validation to what I’ve done in golf. Brings back a flood of memories. This is a deep-down satisfaction, and I’m very proud to be included with the players before me. Seeing your name beside the names that I’ve looked up to as a boy and young golfer, it’s very nice. Everybody on the ballot deserves to be there. It’s unfortunate that everyone can’t be in, but it’s great to be included in the Class of 2024.”
Six LPGA Founders – Patty Berg, Marlene Bauer Hagge, Louise Suggs, Babe Zaharias, Marilynn Smith and Betty Jameson – were already in the Hall. They will soon be joined by Alice Bauer, Bettye Danoff, Helen Dettweiler, Helen Hicks, Opal Hill, Sally Sessions and Shirley Spork.
Hagge is the only living LPGA founder.
The induction ceremony will take place on June 10, 2024, at Pinehurst Resort & Country Club in the Village of Pinehurst, North Carolina, and will coincide with the 124th U.S. Open.
Final selections for the 2024 World Golf Hall of Fame induction class will be announced the week of March 6.
The World Golf Hall of Fame announced its finalists for the 2024 Hall of Fame induction class Wednesday, and it’s loaded with star power.
Among the big names? Padraig Harrington, Jim Furyk. Cristie Kerr and Dottie Pepper.
Final selections for the 2024 World Golf Hall of Fame induction class will be announced the week of March 6. There are 12 finalists, and they include major champions, instructors and those who had a profound impact on the game, including the remaining seven of the 13 founders of the LPGA.
The finalists were selected by a nominating committee comprised of select Hall of Fame members, media, World Golf Foundation Board organizations and at-large selections. Additionally, all living Hall of Fame members were sent ballots and had the opportunity to vote.
“The nominating committee has selected finalists who represent the highest caliber of competitors and contributors,” said Greg McLaughlin, CEO of World Golf Hall of Fame. “Congratulations to all who have been nominated for this special recognition.”
These 12 finalists will be considered for admission into the World Golf Hall of Fame, Class of 2024 by a 20-member Selection Committee, comprised of Hall of Fame members, media representatives and leaders of the major golf organizations. They will be tasked with reviewing the merits and qualifications of each finalist and ultimately selecting the Class of 2024.
The 12 finalists are Padraig Harrington, Tom Weiskopf, Dottie Pepper, Jim Furyk, Cristie Kerr, Sandra Palmer, Peter Dawson, Butch Harmon, Johnny Farrell, Beverly Hanson, Jay Sigel, and the seven remaining co-founders of the LPGA: Alice Bauer, Bettye Danoff, Helen Detweiler, Helen Hicks, Opal Hill, Shirley Spork, Sally Sessions.
Harrington won 21 times professionally, 15 of those coming on the European tour. he also has three major victories and appeared on six Ryder Cup teams. He also captained the 2020 team.
Weiskopf won 16 times on the PGA Tour and captured the 1973 Open Championship.
Pepper won 17 times on the LPGA, including two majors. She was also tabbed 1992 Player of the Year and was a part of six Solheim Cup teams.
Palmer has 21 victories and two majors in her career, earning Player of the Year honors in 1975.
Dawson served as chief executive of the R&A for 16 years and played a pivotal role in golf returning to the Olympics.
Harmon is one of the best instructors in golf history. His pupils include Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Greg Norman.
Farrell has 22 victories on Tour and won the 1928 U.S. Open.
Furyk has captured 17 wins on the PGA Tour, including the 2003 U.S. Open. He was named Player of the Year in 2010. He’s the only golfer to have shot a 58 in competition.
Hanson won the U.S. Women’s Am in 1950 and went on to win three majors and 17 titles.
Kerr has 20 official victories and two majors and has been a part of nine Solheim Cup teams. She ranks third on the LPGA’s all-time money list.
Sigel was a stellar amateur, winning 27 total am events, including the 1982-83 U.S. Amateur, the 1979 British Am and three U.S. Mid-Ams.
Should LPGA titles be stripped away decades later? Jane Blalock and Sandra Palmer would like their records restored.
Jane Blalock either won 29, 26 or 27 times on the LPGA, depending on which media guide you pick up from the late 90s. How can a player who last won in 1985 have such a discrepancy in her record?
Well, like many things about this game, it’s complicated. But the bottom line is this: After being credited for having 29 wins for more than a decade, the phone rang in the late 90s and Blalock, 76, was told that her two victories in the Lady Angelo’s 4-Ball in 1972 and 1973 were being taken away. She’d now have 27 titles. Blalock’s partner for both events, Sandra Palmer, 79, received the same call. Her victory total dropped from 21 to 19.
They were told that a committee had met and decided that team events should not count as official victories, and that was that.
It seems exceedingly harsh to take titles away from players decades down the road. Add them, sure, but strip them away?
Jane Blalock in action during tournament play circa 1982. Blalock was on the LPGA Tour from 1969-87. (Photo by Focus on Sport/Getty Images)
When the LPGA introduced a two-person team event in 2019, the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational, Blalock took note of the fact that it was considered an official win. While the results don’t count toward the Rolex Rankings, Solheim Cup points, or Player of the Year, the winners do receive the standard two-year winner’s exemption on the priority list, CME points, official money and a point toward the LPGA Hall of Fame.
“If Cydney Clanton is going to get her tournament win,” said Blalock of one of the inaugural winners, “then why not for me and Sandra?”
While there was some initial back and forth with the LPGA in 2019, Blalock said she hasn’t heard anything about it since.
(Her victory total dipped down to 26 when it looks like her 1974 Southgate Ladies Open victory was erroneously left off the list and then added back, giving her 27 titles.)
Meg Mallon served on the committee that made that decision back in the late 90s, when changes were being considered for the tour’s Hall of Fame criteria. Some of the greatest to ever play the game weren’t going to get in under the current system, that required 30 LPGA victories with two major championships, or 35 with one major, or 40 with no majors.
That’s when it was changed to the current 27-point system, in which one point is given for each regular LPGA victory, two for a major win and one point each for the LPGA Rolex Player of the Year and Vare Trophy awards. In addition to having 27 points, players must also either win an LPGA major or Player of the Year honors.
During the course of this years-long process, there was an effort made to clean up records. Through that process, Mallon said, it was discovered that credit was given to team events that many felt shouldn’t go into an individual system like the Hall of Fame.
“It took us a long time,” said Mallon. “This committee was (together) seven years. We knew we were going to be criticized.”
There were other team events in the 1970s that were never counted as official events, but Blalock maintains that she was always under the impression that Angelo’s was official. After all, her record immediately changed to reflect those victories and stayed that way for 25 years.
Judy Dickinson, who headed the committee ahead of the LPGA’s 50th anniversary, said they surveyed players from that era to see if they felt the events were official and found that many felt they’d been erroneously marked as official. The events were changed to unofficial, she said, in an effort to be consistent.
Palmer and Blalock disagree.
“I’d like to have credit for that,” said Palmer, who noted that the stars of the time teed it up those weeks on the Cape. Kathy Whitworth, JoAnne Carner, Betsy Rawls, Marlene Hagge and Judy Rankin were among those in the field in 1972.
Sandra Palmer plays a tee shot on the 10th hole during the second round of the U.S. Senior Women’s Open at Chicago Golf Club on July 13, 2018 in Wheaton, Illinois. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
Neither Palmer nor Blalock are in the LPGA Hall of Fame and awarding them each two more points for their 4-Ball wins won’t change that. Palmer would still be three points short, and while Blalock has the points, she’s missing the POY or major title.
Both, however, can still be considered for the World Golf Hall of Fame. Blalock said that’s one big reason why she reached out to the LPGA in 2019, not for herself as much as for Palmer, whose 19 LPGA victories (possibly 21), including two majors and a POY award, make a strong case. There are men in the WGHOF with similar records.
Should this week’s Dow event count as an official victory? It’s Clanton’s only LPGA title. For some, it could be a life-changing week. For others, like last year’s winner Ariya Jutanugarn, another step toward the Hall.
Count former No. 1 Stacy Lewis among those who believes this week should be official.
“Yeah, it’s a team format, but you’re still playing against the best players in the world,” said Lewis. “For Dow, I think for our sponsors, it should be an official format. I don’t think you get world rankings points. There is no way to count stats or anything like that with the format.
“But I think you can still call it an official win. I have no problem with that. I think the tournament deserves that. I think Dow’s investment into this tournament and women’s golf deserves it. And players do, too. You’re playing four rounds. You still got to hit the putts, the shots. You just got a little bit of help.”
In the midst of a stressful summer, Lewis continued, events like this are needed.
Teammates Cydney Clanton of the United States (R) and Jasmine Suwannapura of Thailand pose for a simulated selfie with the championship necklace’s after winning the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational at Midland Country Club on July 19, 2019 in Midland, Michigan. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
This week’s field is missing several big names, like World No. 1 Jin Young Ko and No. 2 Minjee Lee. But the Korda sisters are in Midland, Michigan, along with Lexi Thompson, Jennifer Kupcho and Leona Maguire. Giving this event official status matters when it comes to strength of field. The same reason it matters for the PGA Tour’s Zurich Classic, which also counts as an official victory.
When Elaine Scott, former LPGA communications director, worked on Louise Sugg’s biography, “And That’s That!”, it was discovered the LPGA founder’s victory total was a bit off.
Six weeks shy of Suggs’ 90th birthday, the tour added three more wins to her name. Two of those titles came in 1961 during Suggs’ last full year on tour – Sea Island Open and the Naples Pro-Am – plus the Pro-Lady Victory National Championship, which she won as an amateur with Ben Hogan in 1946.
The additions moved Suggs ahead of Berg (60) to rank fourth all-time on the LPGA list, behind Kathy Whitworth (88), Mickey Wright (82) and Annika Sorenstam (72).
(The old JCPenney Classic, a mixed event between the LPGA and PGA Tours, was not considered official.)
Scott said players kept records in their car trunks in those early years and drove down the highway with scoreboards attached to their roofs.
Left to right; Patty Berg, Betty Jameson, Jean Hopkins, and Louise Suggs, before the start of the Western Women’s Golf tournament, June 1946. (Copyright Unknown/USGA Museum)
The LPGA’s record keeping is notoriously poor. Wikipedia is used far more often than resources offered by the tour.
During a time when the core of this game is being scrutinized like never before, the finer points about what should count toward the Hall of Fame serves as a reminder of why the roots of the game are so important.
Should event titles be stripped from a player decades later? Should team events be given the same weight as individual ones? These are worthy debates.
Just as it’s important for records to be as fair and complete as possible, so that decorated LPGA players can rightly take their place among all golfers.
“For Sandra, it could make a very big difference to the Hall of Fame,” said Blalock. “It’s just a number, but to me, it’s more meaningful to Sandra. I also like the sound of 29 much better than 27.
RANCHO MIRAGE, California – “Do it! Do it!” fans screamed as a foursome of past champions huddled on the back of the 18th green. Jennifer Kupcho, the 2022 Chevron champion, was out of Poppie’s Pond and wrapped in a robe by this point.
And here they came, led by the ever-spunky Patty Sheehan, who at age 65 did a front flip into Poppie’s Pond that was downright legendary. France’s Patricia Meunier-Lebouc was carried into the pond by her husband when she won back in 2003. She called home to say she planned to jump in for the first time on her own two feet.
Sandra Palmer tripped before she got to the pond, a scary moment that she played off well, walking over to the side of the pool and wading in with a little shimmy. Palmer, 79, who is still a teaching pro here in the desert, won the Colgate-Dinah Shore Winner’s Circle in 1975 before it became a major.
Amy Alcott, the player who started this whole tradition in the first place, took her time at the water’s edge, lifting up a rose to the heavens in memory of her longtime caddie Bill Curry, who died last year. Alcott then put her hands above her head and dove headfirst into the pond.
“I can feel him all around here,” said Alcott, choking back tears.
This was the best part of the day. Patty Sheehan’s front flip is LEGENDARY. Sandra Palmer is OK! That’s her dancing after she fell. Amy Alcott w/ emotional tribute to her late caddie. Held a🌹to the sky and then dove in. Backstrokes for the finishing touch!
Sheehan didn’t dive into the murky water when she won here in 1996. It wasn’t clean like a swimming pool back then. But she did dive in when Rose Zhang won the ANA Junior Inspiration in 2018. Zhang felt awkward about the whole thing, said Sheehan.
“I said come on, go swimming with me,” said Sheehan, “so I did the backstroke there, too.”
Rumors began swirling earlier in the week that past champions might jump into Poppie’s Pond, but Sheehan said nothing was really solidified until Meunier-Lebouc said, “if you do, I do.”
Patty Sheehan swims in Poppie’s Pond after jumping in after the 2022 Chevron Championship at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, California. (Photo: Taya Gray/The Desert Sun)
Beth Daniel, Meg Mallon and Rosie Jones sat in the front row of the grandstands as the whole thing unfolded. All three finished runner-up at this event. An important chapter of LPGA history closed on Sunday and they weren’t going to miss it.
“We’ve got to embrace the future,” said Meunier-Lebouc, clutching a white towel after one final leap.
