Ryder Cup legends headline 2009 Hall of Fame class
By Helen Ross, PGATOUR.COM Chief of Correspondents
ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. -- Three of the greatest Ryder Cup players of all time and the United States president whose own love of the game brought it to the masses took their place in the World Golf Hall of Fame on Monday evening.
Lanny Wadkins, Jose Maria Olazabal and Christy O'Connor were inducted on a crisp autumn evening with the late President Dwight D. Eisenhower in ceremonies at the World Golf Village. Their inclusion brought the number of players in the Hall of Fame to 130.
Wadkins played in eight Ryder Cups, posting a 20-11-3 record, and won 21 times on the PGA TOUR, including the 1977 PGA Championship. Olazabal, a two-time Masters champ, played in seven and went 18-8-5 while O'Connor, known in his native Ireland simply as "Himself," played in 10 and posted an 11-21-4 record.
Olazabal entered the Hall a decade after his good friend and mentor, Seve Ballesteros, who is battling a brain tumor but introduced him by videotape on Monday evening. The two who would become such a formidable Ryder Cup team first met when Olazabal was 15 and Ballesteros asked the teenager to play in a charity match at his home course.
"Something special happened that day," Olazabal said. "It's very hard for me to say, but you can call it chemistry, call it whatever you want, but it was the base of a great relationship through the years, and it showed at the Ryder Cup."
The two Spaniards played many practice rounds together, and Olazabal said he learned a lot "particularly around the greens," from his mentor. But perhaps Ballesteros' greatest gift was to teach Olazabal, who spent 18 months away from the game with what was eventually diagnosed as a compressed vertebrae in his back, the value of perseverance.
"He showed me how important it was not to give up at any point or any stage of the match or the round," Olazabal, who won two Masters, said. "He always had that fighting spirit. He never gave up, and I learned a lot from that.
"I think that has been very helpful in my career, at several points in my career, where things are not going your way. You think, wow, is it worth all the work that I'm putting on? And then you look at a guy like him, and I say, well, there is no shortcuts here, so you'd better keep on working hard."
Wadkins remembers Olazabal as a "true competitor," adding that "He's got a lot of the fire and imagination that Seve had." The two went head-to-head in several Ryder Cups but one of Wadkins' favorite memories of his fellow inductee might be from the 1991 NEC World Series of Golf at Firestone Country Club where Wadkins held the tournament record.
"We were talking that week how tough Firestone was going to play that week," he recalled. 'I said the rough was really up, and somebody said 'What's it going to take to win it?' And I said, '6 under would be a hell of a score this week.' I shot 6 under, finished two or three shots ahead of third place and 12 behind José María.
"So he blew my tournament record away. When he got going, he was tough."
People would say the same of Wadkins, who was inducted by CBS announcer Jim Nantz, his good friend and long-time partner in the broadcast booth. The former Wake Forest All-American joins two other former Deacons, Curtis Strange and Arnold Palmer, in the Hall.
Like Olazabal, Wadkins picked the brains of some of the best -- including the legendary Ben Hogan. Wadkins moved to Dallas after he left Wake Forest and the two became friends, frequently playing together at Hogan's home course, Shady Oaks Country Club.
"I asked him about my game, and he said, 'I don't know why the hell you're not winning more tournaments,''" Wadkins recalled. "That was in late '81, and I said, well, let's get after it here, and I won three times in '82."
One of the artifacts Wadkins gave to the Hall of Fame -- a $4 check from Hogan and the letter that accompanied it -- was from one of those matches. He remembers the day vividly.
"We usually had a foursome, pretty set foursome that played all the time, all good players, no strokes involved, everybody was playing pretty much heads up, skins game or money game against each other," Wadkins said. "Never a lot of money, just a couple dollar skins game. This day ... one of the guys didn't show, so the three of us were out there playing.
"We got on about the 14th, 15th hole at Shady Oaks, and a guy rides up in a cart, and he's got shorts on and he's got a beard. That's probably two of Hogan's least favorite things on a golf course. The guy doesn't ask anything, he says, 'I'm going to join you guys the rest of the way in.' Didn't even ask. Now, would you ride up to Ben Hogan and say, "Hey, I'm playing with you today"?
"That didn't fly with Ben. He looked at me and said, "Are you ready to go?" I said, "I'm with you, Ben." We drove off and left him sitting there. He was so embarrassed because this happened at his club, Shady Oaks, where he was a member, and thus the letter apologizing for the intruder, and I was two skins up at the time. So I got the check for $4."
Wadkins said Hogan's secretary called him monthly for about six months asking him to cash the check so she could balance his bank account. "I said, 'Clara Bell, there's no chance I'm cashing that check ever,'" he said, grinning at the memory.
Eisenhower also had a special relationship with a great player -- the legendary Palmer, who inducted the late President on Monday evening. Palmer remembers Eisenhower as a regular guy who shared his love of flying and excelled in everything he did from being a soldier to being Commander in Chief. He just never broke 80, Palmer said with a smile.
Eisenhower and Clifford Roberts, an investment banker who was the first chairman of Augusta National, were friends long before the President met Palmer. In 1958, Eisenhower had a special request of Roberts -- could he play with the Masters champion? Turns out, Palmer happened to win that year.
"Cliff Roberts very early after the tournament ended came to me, and he said, 'Arnie, the President wants to come and play golf with you tomorrow if you can get your schedule straightened out,'" Palmer recalled. "And I said, "Well, if he can get his schedule straightened out, I think I can get mine straightened out.
"It happened, and we became, in one day, pretty close. We talked about things other than golf. We talked about everything. And of course among the things that we talked about was getting together and playing golf in the future. ... It was a very warm relationship from the beginning."
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