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By Helen Ross
PGATOUR.com Chief of Correspondents

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. -- Curtis Strange was 6 years old when he first met Sam Snead. At the time, Strange's father was the head pro at The Greenbrier, the resort in White Sulphur Springs, W. Va., that Snead called home for more than 60 years.

Strange, with twin brother Allan (right). In the 1980s, Allan played the PGA TOUR for two years and sometimes served as caddie for his brother. (Getty Images)

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Video:  Strange named to World Golf Hall of Fame Video:  Strange reflects on Hall of Fame career

Strange had photos of Snead, along with Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Byron Nelson and Ben Hogan, among others, plastered on the wall of his bedroom. He squirreled other pictures of his golf heroes away in a scrapbook. As he and his identical twin brother Allan grew up, though, the man whose swing they emulated was the crusty veteran from the mountains of West Virginia.

"We would always say, "Does Sam do it like that?' Strange recalled. "If Sam didn't do it like that, it wasn't good enough for us. So Sam was always the model we used from day one. ... He was our model. Still is. Still is for everyone."

During the course of a standout career that continues even now on the Champions Tour, the 53-year-old Strange had many opportunities to play with the late Snead -- and the other legends of the game he used to study from afar. On Monday, though, he'll join them in perpetuity as he's inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame.

Strange, a two-time U.S. Open champion, is one of six who will be inducted in the ceremonies at the World Golf Village in St. Augustine, Fla. Also in that group are 19-time PGA TOUR winner Hubert Green; Australian Kel Nagle, who counts the 1960 Open Championship among his 77 titles worldwide, and Se Ri Pak, who has captured five LPGA majors. Irish amateur Joe Carr and architect Charles Blair Macdonald will be inducted posthumously, as well.

"This isn't taken lightly," Strange said recently. "I don't know really what to say. I don't know how to say it sometimes. ... I grew up in this game with the heroes that are still heroes of mine today. ... When you look at that, think about that, remember those times, it really is, honest to goodness, overwhelming that I'm going to be in the Hall of Fame with them.

"As I jokingly say, probably will jokingly say on stage again, they're never going to put me in the same breath with Hogan, Snead and Nelson, but at least I'll be under the same roof. I truly mean that. I would never ever be presumptuous enough to think that my career stands up to theirs or anything. That's not even close. We know that."

Strange was at the peak of his career in 1989, when he won the second of two U.S. Opens. Strange had a unique golf swing that held up exceptionally well under pressure. (WireImage)

Strange did manage to win 17 times on the PGA TOUR, though, including those back-to-back U.S. Opens. He became the first player to top $1 million in single-season earnings in 1988 when he captured the third of his three PGA TOUR money titles. Strange played on five Ryder Cup teams and captained the 2002 squad that lost to Sam Torrance's European Team at The Belfry.

The three-time Wake Forest All-American later spent seven years in the broadcast booth before returning to competitive golf on the Champions Tour when he turned 50 in 2005. He is a former NCAA champion and Walker Cupper who won a multitude of amateur titles, as well. He admits, though, that a place in the Hall of Fame was not on his radar screen while he was younger. Even now, he calls himself a "bubble boy."

"You never think about something like that. If you did, it was too farfetched. It was too big a dream," Strange said. "It was something incomprehensible to think that as a kid you could make it into the Hall of Fame. ... You think about maybe possibly playing your professional sport, maybe playing well. ...

"These guys, honestly, when you're a kid, nine, 10, 11, 12 years old spending every day at the golf course, these were gods to me. These were the people that I chose to try to emulate, try to be like, try to swing like. They were so far from me. I never had met any of them at that time. Hell, it was enough of a thrill the first time I just met them much less played with them and got to know them.

"To think about the Hall of Fame years ago, I didn't anyway. It was too big a dream."

Strange's father, who played in seven U.S. Opens and is a member of the Virginia State Hall of Fame, died when he was 14. One of his friends, Chandler Harper, who won the 1950 PGA Championship and 11 PGA TOUR titles, took Strange under his wing -- helping him with his game, driving him to golf tournaments, setting up games with the legendary Snead.

"More than anything else, he believed in me," Strange said. "I can't tell you how important that is for somebody. It made me feel good. ... He was a large part of my life from early on in my career. He was no BS. He was to the point. He was old school. He always wanted my left hand a little stronger than it was and still would to this day. He was great. He was a lot of fun to be around."

Another person who believed in Strange was long-time Wake Forest golf coach Jesse Haddock. While Strange was at Wake Forest, he won an NCAA individual title and played on back-to-back national championship teams. Among his teammates were Bob Byman, David Thore and Jay Haas, who was last year's Champions Tour Player of the Year.

"If it wasn't for Jesse Haddock and Wake Forest, I wouldn't be talking to you today," Strange said. "I truly believe that. He gave me the opportunity to, first of all, attend Wake Forest on a golf scholarship. He gave me the opportunity to play against three of the best amateurs in the country every day in Jay, Bob and David, a couple others. We pushed each other. We played hard. We played every day. We became a very good team. All of that confidence out of Wake, all of that playing against Jay every day made me a much better player.

"I might have been on TOUR for 30 years, not going to Wake Forest, but it certainly would have been different. I owe him a great deal."

Strange turned pro in 1976 and won his first PGA TOUR event three years later when he beat Bill Kratzert by a stroke at the Pensacola Open. He went on to win 16 times in the 1980s -- including those career-defining and life-altering national championships.

The first came in 1988 when Strange beat Nick Faldo in an 18-hole playoff at The Country Club. A year later, Strange became the first player to successfully defend a U.S. Open title since Ben Hogan (1950-51) when he beat Chip Beck, Mark McCumber and Ian Woosnam by a shot at Oak Hill Country Club.

At 52, Strange still plays on the Champions Tour. (Getty Images)

Strange came to Medinah in 1990 shouldering suffocating pressure as he attempted to be the first player to win three straight U.S. Opens since Willie Anderson in 1903-05. He would eventually tie for 21st, six strokes behind the champ, Hale Irwin, who beat Mike Donald in an 18-hole playoff. .

Strange famously flirted with a Green Jacket in 1985, too, only to squander a four-stroke lead on Augusta National's back nine Sunday. Strange deposited balls into the water at each of the devilish par 5s, made bogeys and was bypassed by a hard-charging Bernhard Langer. So which was more devastating -- the Masters or the third U.S. Open?

"If I never won a U.S. Open, the Masters would have been," Strange said. "I came back and played well that year, came back and played well after that. I would say devastating is the wrong word; '90 was hard to come back from. Not because it was so devastating, because it was such a long ride, such an emptiness afterwards, letdown.

"Letdown is the wrong word, as well. Just such an emptiness afterwards that I just kind of didn't quite recover, I guess. ... To this day I don't really know how to explain it."

And how does Strange think people will remember him?

"I don't know," he said. "Again, I jokingly said before, it's obviously going to be the U.S. Opens. It might have been putting Tiger Woods last in the Ryder Cup in '04. Who the hell knows? Obviously, it will be the U.S. Opens. I think you have to have some tenacity, patience. It's weird that I say that, patience, because I didn't have a lot at times.

"We all love the game. Anybody that's in that Hall of Fame, anybody that's done well, you know, amateur or professionally, has loved the game, to put in the time and the effort, the lonesome times, the quiet times at the end of the range by yourself. There's no getting around that. There's no coaches. There's no sports psychologist. There's no motivators when you're on the range by yourself at home doing a lot of hard work.

"It's got to come from within. I think you better be in love, not just love it, be but in love with it to go through those times."

Monday, though, those lonesome, quiet times will be celebrated as Strange takes his place with all his idols.