World Golf Hall of Fame Changes

[Bad9]

IIRC the WGHOF has a policy that someone has to get in every year so despite not meeting the minimum requirements Couples(and Love III?) got in because they were the highest ranked in their year. I may be wrong on that but that's what I remember.

[Hawkeye77]

Found an article re Couples that was interesting, but bottom line is he was on the ballot and got the votes. I don't agree, but I didn't have a ballot.

Sounds like you may be remembering someone along the lines of the 50% explained. He met the minimum requirements for eligibility, but got in on a last man standing kind of thing - article suggests conspiracy, lol, but over 50% is over 50% regardless of the fractional amount. Fred Couples Hall of Fame election shows flaws in system

 

 

[Bad9]

Thanks for the clarification.

[Hawkeye77]

New HoF members’ inductions "a joke," says FloydLOL, forgot that Ray Floyd didn't sugar coat his opinions.

 

[Shilgy]

The minimum requirements were just listed above and both were qualified.

[grm24]

DL3 was inducted in 2017. He got in under the current 75% rule. VJ & Monty got in under the old "last man standing" of under 65% of the vote and over 50%. There is no rule that someone had to be voted in every year.

[Bad9]

As I said it was as I recalled. Thanks to everyone who provided clarification.

[Shilgy]

Vijay Singh received less than 65%? 14th all time wins with 34 and 3 majors. That VJ? That is more of a travesty than Freddie getting in.

[Ferguson]

Fred got in with GROUPON.

 

 

[bscinstnct]

 

How the heck can Freddie be in the same HoF as Jack Nicklaus and Ben Hogan?

 

 

Is like if the Baseball HoF had,

 

 

And then...

 

 

No offense to Felix, he was dope!

 

[Darth Putter]

 

I would guess the allegations of cheating and the deer spray probably lowered the total a bit.

 

I assume Freddie got in because Jim Nantz had Moose and Rocco visit the voters.

[Darth Putter]

Jody Davis for Hall of Fame!

 

[bscinstnct]

 

How bout, The Chicken, Fred Stanley

 

Career .215 hitter with 10 HRs but

2 World Series wins!

 

 

 

 

[Ferguson]

I am sure Fred got 10 votes for swearing. I followed Fred at multiple tournaments - lucky for me, I witnessed several where he played poorly.

He would drop f-bombs constantly.

 

"Joey, give me the 7...swish.............................phock."

"Ok, Joey, what's the number - 107, wedge....swish......phock."

"Joey, what's to carry the left bunker - 162.....swish........phock.

 

[grm24]

It's crazy. When VJ was elected in April 2005 he was the youngest player elected to the WGHOF. At the time of his election he "only" had 25 of his 34 wins on the PGA Tour. Good article on it below. Vijay Singh to become Youngest Member of Hall of Fame

[grm24]

The deer spray incident took place in 2013. VJ was inducted in 2005. See article I posted above to Shilgy.

[Bye]

I thought it was 15 but had to include 2 majors. If that is wrong then I stand corrected.

[Hawkeye77]

It was the "streaky" exception they were conflicted over. ;-)

[Brock Savage]

I thought it was 15 PGA events, but apparently you can also get in with 15 Sunshine Tour wins. That's really lowering the bar. Most Korn Ferry events are stronger than most Sunshine events.

 

[grm24]

You can be nominated for induction into the WGHOF for only having 15 Sunshine Tour wins. However under no circumstances does that mean you will actually be inducted into the WGHOF. It's spelled out quite clearly on the WGHOF website.

[Brock Savage]

Yes, I understand that, but it still seems to be too low of a bar, even for eligibility.

I realize that it's a World Hall of Fame, not just PGA, and I realize that players should get some credit for winning on their home tours. But since the old-timer's category is gone now, and we have OGWR strength of field ratings for every event played by any future candidate, they could do the eligibility by SOF of events won. Winning the Memorial, or a WGC, should count for a lot more than winning Sunshine Tour events.

For those not familiar with the Strength of Field rating, it's a calculation based on the world rankings of the players in the fields of each event played on a recognized tour. You can find the SOF for any event on the World Golf Ranking website under the Events menu. It's even more accurate than the winner's WGR points, because the points are sometimes automatic, but the SOF is calculated for each event.

For example, all four majors automatically give you 100 points for a win, and the Players automatically gives you 80 points. But in 2019, the Players had a stronger SOF than both the US Open and the Masters --- because the US Open had several amateurs and/or guys who had the week of their lives during sectional qualifying, and the Masters had a small field. The PGA Championship had the strongest SOF at 901, while the Players was 882, and the Masters was 796. The Northern Trust, which awarded only 76 points to the winner, was almost exactly as strong as the Masters, with a SOF of 794.

A strong invitational like Bay Hill or the Memorial has a SOF around 550. A good regular PGA Tour event like the Canadian or Valspar is a little over 300, as are several of the stronger Euro Tour events. A second tier event like the Byron Nelson or Valero is a little over 200. A third tier event like the John Deere is around 75, and an opposite field event like the Barbasol or Puerto Rican is just below 20.

Almost all the Sunshine Tour events are below 5, most of them are around 2, and several of them are 0.

In other words, the Memorial is objectively over 200 times as strong as a typical Sunshine Tour event. Yet other things being equal, winning the Memorial counts the same as winning a Sunshine Tour event as far as eligibility for the WGHOF goes.

Sorry, but that's just wrong. Instead of 15 wins from anywhere making you eligible, how about saying instead of wins, we go by weighted wins --- you need to win events with a total SOF equivalent to 15 strong regular PGA events (or strong Euro Tour events) with a SOF of 300, so that's 4500 total points worth of wins. You can get that by winning 5 PGA Championships, or 7 WGC's, or 9 Memorials, or 15 Saudi Internationals, or 23 Byron Nelsons, or 60 John Deeres, or 2000 Sunshine Tour events.

Or some combination of the above. Of course, that just makes you eligible, and you still have to be voted in by people who evaluate the overall quality of your career. But at least it will cut down on the number of people they have to look at.

 

 

 

[cdnglf]

SoF only gives weight to the top 200 OWGR. You could have a tournament with every player in the world outside the top 200, and it would have an SoF of 0. According to the OWGR formula, this field would be infinitely “weaker” than a match between OWGR #199 and #200.

So, while I agree that some wins are much better than others, SoF in its current form is not a great way to measure it.

In practice, I doubt the “15 win from any tour “ rule adds many candidates, and it is pretty easy to figure out which ones deserve serious consideration.

[Hawkeye77]

There were tons of voters fawning all over him with comments when he got in, but he barely made it under the criteria at that time.