Strange, Green, Pak headline '07 Hall of Fame class  PGATOUR.com Chief of Correspondents ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. -- Curtis Strange's 17 PGA TOUR titles and two major championships earned him induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame. But he planned to rely on his seven-year career in the broadcast booth to get him through the festivities on Monday night.  Curtis Strange won two U.S. Opens. (Condon/PGA TOUR) "(Mike) Tirico has been giving me some advice," Strange admitted, talking about his former colleague at ABC. "It's almost a bit like TV work because you've got to present something -- instead of just react off a question from playing or something." Turns out, Strange may have spoken for the entire Class of 2007 on Monday evening when he noted that "the honor of one is the honor of all." In each of their acceptance speeches, Strange and the other two inductees in attendance -- two-time major champion Hubert Green and Se Ri Pak, who has won five LPGA majors -- emphasized "all" of the people who helped them in their quest to be the best. The 84-year-old Kel Nagle, who held off Arnold Palmer to win the 1960 Open Championship at St. Andrews, sent a videotaped acceptance from his home in Australia while Irish amateur Joe Carr and architect and administrator Charles Blair Macdonald were inducted posthumously. The induction of the six brought to 120 the members of the Hall of Fame. Strange spoke of his father, Tom, the golf pro in Virginia who started his twin sons in the game and encouraged them to be the best at whatever they decided to do in life. He thanked his college coach, Jesse Haddock, and players like Jay Haas, his Wake Forest teammate, for pushing him. The man known for his steely-eyed determination and all-consuming drive had to pause and compose himself when he talked about his wife of 31 years, Sarah. Green talked about his father, as well, a doctor who was judicious in doling out praise but supportive of his children just the same. He remembered getting his first trophy at the age of 9 as vividly as either major championship. He took time to thank the more than 70 people who had come to support him at the induction, as well as his good friend Fuzzy Zoeller, who presented him. Strange was the first TOUR player to earn $1 million in a single season, but he will always be remembered for those back to back U.S. Open titles in 1988 and '89. He became the first to successfully defend the national championship since Ben Hogan in 1950-51 when Strange beat Chip Beck, Mark McCumber and Ian Woosnam by a stroke at Oak Hill Country Club. He outlasted Nick Faldo to win his first at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass.  Hubert Green had 19 PGA TOUR wins. (Condon/PGA TOUR) "That magnitude is why he's here," said Jack Nicklaus, who inducted Carr and was on hand to open a special exhibit on his career at the World Golf Hall of Fame. "Curtis Strange was a very, very good player. ... Curtis in those two years obviously played very, very well to set himself apart from everybody else. That was pretty good achievement. Something I didn't do, something a lot of guys didn't do." Faced with extreme pressure at Medinah a year later, Strange fell short in his bid to become the first to win three straight U.S. Opens since Willie Anderson in 1903-05. In fact, the former Wake Forest All-American would never win again on TOUR, although he contended for a third Open in 1994 -- finishing one stroke out of the playoff between Ernie Els, Loren Roberts and Colin Montgomerie. When he finally decided to stop playing competitively, Strange, who was elected to the Hall of Fame on the PGA TOUR ballot, showcased his quick wit and candor in the broadcast booth. He also played on five Ryder Cup teams and captained the 2002 squad. He currently plays on the Champions Tour.
"To honor 30 years of playing and to be voted into a very exclusive club is very special," Strange said. "This never goes away. It's hard to put into words that I'm actually in the same building with Snead and Hogan and Nelson and Nicklaus and all the rest. ... I'm the first one to admit, you're not going to confuse my record with the other ones that are in this Hall of Fame, a lot of them. I know that. But I'm under the same roof, and that's fine with me." Like Strange, Green's last win on the PGA TOUR was a major championship -- the 1985 PGA Championship. He also counts the 1977 U.S. Open among his 19 TOUR wins -- a tournament that he captured despite getting death threats in the final round. A three-time Ryder Cupper, playing on the 1985 team with Strange, Green has conquered oral cancer and still competes on the Champions Tour, where he has won four times.  Si Re Pak has won 24 LPGA Tour events. (Condon/PGA TOUR) Pak led the influx of Korean players on the LPGA Tour. She won 30 tournaments as an amateur, and she has 24 LPGA Tour titles in a career that continues this week at the season-ending ADT Championship. She won two majors as a rookie in 1998 and has gone on to capture three more, most recently the 2006 McDonald's LPGA Championship. "Basically right now I feel like I'm in the air," said Pak, who was inducted by Hall of Famer Nancy Lopez, whom she called her American mother. "This is probably my dream come true, this day I've been waiting for like 15, 16 years actually, as soon as I start playing golf I decided I just want to be a professional golfer, best golfer in the world. And finally I'm here. "Actually every day, every hour, every second, basically everything in my mind, all about this. Basically I just kept focused on playing golf, just been really excited to be here and I'm very honored to be with other members, Hall of Famers. I'm a very lucky person, I think." Nagle, who won 61 times on the Australasian Tour and 14 more times worldwide, will receive his crystal from Jack Peter, the COO of the Hall of Fame, in December during the Australian Golf Writers Association dinner. Greg Norman, who preceded Nagle in the Hall of Fame, is expected to attend. David Fay, who is the executive director of the USGA, spoke on behalf of Macdonald, who was selected in the Lifetime Achievement category. Macdonald designed the first 18-hole golf course in America and was also a charter member of the Amateur Golf Association of the United States, which was the forerunner of the USGA. Fay said the 19th century golfer was keen on making sure that golf "shared the same values whether it was played at St. Andrews, Syracuse, Sydney or Seoul." Carr, who was born in Dublin, won three British Amateur championships and played on 10 Walker Cup teams. In 1967, he became he first Irishman to compete in the Masters, six years after he was awarded the USGA's Bob Jones Award. |
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