Padraig Harrington, Sandra Palmer along with the late Johnny Farrell, Beverly Hanson, Tom Weiskopf and the LPGA Founders will be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2024. Final selections were determined today by the World Golf Hall of Fame Selection Committee and the elite group will become members of the World Golf Hall of Fame at the 2024 Induction Ceremony to be held on Monday, June 10, 2024 at Pinehurst Resort & Country Club in the Village of Pinehurst, N.C. coinciding with the 124th U.S. Open Championship.
INDUCTION CLASS OF 2024:
JOHNNY FARRELL (Class of 2024)
For eight decades, Johnny Farrell had a starring role in the game of golf.
He is one of the few players to have taken down the legendary Bob Jones, birdieing the final two holes of a 36-hole playoff to defeat the nine-time USGA champion by one stroke in the 1928 U.S. Open at Olympia Fields (Ill.) Country Club.
All told, Farrell amassed 27 victories during his illustrious career. While the U.S. Open was his lone major title, he finished second in both The Open Championship and PGA Championship in 1929. He also had eight top-10s in 22 U.S. Open starts and represented the United States on the first three Ryder Cup Teams in 1927, 1929 and 1931.
Starting in the spring of 1927, Farrell won eight consecutive PGA TOUR events, a run that was unequalled until Byron Nelson won 11 in a row in 1945. He was named Player of the Year in both 1927 and 1928. When he was not competing, Farrell was teaching the game to several U.S. Presidents (Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford), as well as celebrities Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Douglas Fairbanks.
Farrell also served as the head golf professional at Quaker Ridge Golf Club in Scarsdale, N.Y., from 1919 to 1930. He then moved to Baltusrol Golf Club in Springfield, N.J., in 1934, where he served as the iconic club’s head pro for 33 years.
Farrell and his wife, Catherine, had five children: Johnny, Billy, Jimmy, Cathy and Peggy.
BEVERLY HANSON (Class of 2024)
It is rare to find a player from North Dakota who had success in the game. Beverly Hanson became the first from the state to not only win a USGA championship – the 1950 U.S. Women’s Amateur – but to represent her country in the Curtis Cup Match that same year. Now she is the first North Dakotan to be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame.
Hanson amassed 17 LPGA TOUR victories, three of which were major titles. She claimed the inaugural LPGA Championship in 1955, defeating fellow Hall of Famer Louise Suggs, 4 and 3, in the title match. She would add the Western Open a year later, again edging Suggs by four strokes, and then captured the Titleholders Championship in 1958 by five shots. The last of her victories came in the 1960 St. Petersburg Open.
Her strong play earned Hanson a small amount of fame and even a cameo, along with Babe Zaharias and Betty Hicks among others, in the 1952 movie “Pat and Mike” starring Katherine Hepburn as a professional golfer.
Along with her husband, Andy Sfingi, Hanson lived in Greater Palm Springs (Calif.) for decades, raising two children. After leaving the LPGA TOUR, she enjoyed a comfortable life as a teaching pro at Eldorado Country Club in Indian Wells, a job she kept for 35 years.
“She had her normal little group of ladies who had lessons from her,” said Terry Beardsley, the director of golf at Eldorado. “And she had a joke every day. She loved to tell jokes.”
PADRAIG HARRINGTON (Class of 2024)
Born in Dublin, Ireland, Padraig Harrington’s career far exceeded his original expectations.
Harrington, who produced three major-championship victories, is one of four players to have claimed consecutive titles in The Open Championship (2007, 2008). During his long and prosperous professional career, which also included a victory in the 2008 PGA Championship, he registered 39 worldwide victories – 15 of which came on the European Tour and six more coming on the PGA TOUR.
He represented Europe in six Ryder Cup Matches and later captained the team in the 2021 event. Among his many achievements and honors, Harrington topped the European Tour Order of Merit in 2006 and was named the European Tour and PGA TOUR Player of the Year in 2008.
All of which makes for a remarkable resume for someone who had doubts about playing the game professionally.
“I didn’t think I was good enough,” said Harrington. “But I decided I would turn pro because I could beat the amateurs who were turning pro. None of the best players from 1990-1995 beat me in singles, you know, so I said, right, I’ll give it a go.”
After representing Great Britain & Ireland in three Walker Cups (1991, 1993, 1995), Harrington transitioned quite well to the professional level, winning the 1998 Spanish Open during his rookie season on the European Tour. He went on to spend more than 300 weeks in the top 10 of the Official World Golf Ranking.
SANDRA PALMER (Class of 2024)
Born in Fort Worth, Texas, Sandra Palmer spent most of her childhood in Maine, discovering golf while riding the bus to school.
Each day, the bus would pass a local golf course, and one day, Palmer got off the bus early and walked into a lifelong career, first as a caddie and eventually as a highly successful professional that saw her claim 19 LPGA TOUR titles, including two majors, the 1972 Titleholders Championship and 1975 U.S. Women’s Open.
What the 5-foot, 1½-inch Palmer lacked in size, she made up for in determination, becoming a consistent force on the LPGA TOUR in the 1970s.
Palmer turned professional in 1964 but needed seven years to register her first victory, the 1971 Sealy LPGA Classic. From 1968-77, she was a model of consistency, never finishing outside the top 10 on the money list and winning at least one tournament during a seven-year period from 1971-77.
“I can’t tell you why I wanted to play pro golf,” said Palmer. “I wasn’t any good. But it was a challenge. It’s so much harder to hit a golf ball than a tennis ball. It is an art and you can never perfect it.”
Palmer enrolled at the University of North Texas in 1959 and even though the school didn’t offer women’s golf – this was 13 years before the passage of Title IX – Palmer often practiced with two talented UNT male players, Rives McBee and Bobby Greenwood.
Palmer retired from the circuit in 1997 and became a Class A member of the LPGA Teaching and Club Pro Division.
TOM WEISKOPF (Class of 2024)
Tom Weiskopf’s long, successful and multifaceted career in golf left an indelible mark on the game.
He won only one major title, The Open Championship at Troon in 1973, but he performed exceptionally well in many of the game’s biggest events. From 1969 to 1979, he posted 12 top-five finishes in majors, including four runner-up showings at the Masters (1969, 1972, 1974, 1975), the latter a duel between him, Johnny Miller and eventual winner Jack Nicklaus. His performances earned him a spot on a pair of winning U.S. Ryder Cup Teams in 1973 and 1975.
Weiskopf’s journey in golf began when his father took him to the 1957 U.S. Open at Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio. Watching Sam Snead hit shots on the range inspired him to take up the game, and he eventually followed in the footsteps of fellow Ohio legend, Nicklaus, by attending The Ohio State University.
“Unquestionably, the best years of my life were those spent in Columbus, at Ohio State,” Weiskopf said. “Those years gave me the confidence to become successful.”
In his amateur days, Weiskopf showcased his talent by winning the 1963 Ohio Amateur Championship, a triumph that set the stage for his transition into professional golf. He turned pro the following year, and quickly ascended to the top of his profession. Though it took him four years to earn his first PGA TOUR victory, he became a formidable force, amassing 16 victories while solidifying his status as one of the era’s premier players.
Weiskopf’s influence extended far beyond his exploits on the golf course. He used his expertise to become one of finest modern-day architects, designing courses such as Troon Golf Club and TPC Scottsdale in Arizona.
LPGA FOUNDERS (Class of 2024)
There are few figures who stand as tall in golf as the founders of the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA): Alice Bauer, Patty Berg, Bettye Danoff, Helen Dettweiler, Marlene Bauer Hagge, Helen Hicks, Opal Hill, Betty Jameson, Sally Sessions, Marilynn Smith, Shirley Spork, Louise Suggs and Babe Zaharias.
Born out of a shared passion for the game and an unrelenting determination to carve out a space for women in the world of professional golf, the journey began in 1950, at Rolling Hills Country Club in Wichita, Kan., where a dream the 13 women shared turned into a reality with the founding of the LPGA.
The founders used money from their own pockets to travel the country in cars, run their own tournaments, set up their own golf courses and do their own promotional appearances without much financial support from sponsors or equipment companies.
“We owe the LPGA’s long and illustrious history to the dedicated efforts and incredible commitment of our 13 Founders,” said LPGA Commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan. “Their leadership created the most successful women’s sports organization in the world, and they made it possible for women to pursue golf as a passion and as a career.”
Thanks to the hard work and devotion of the founders, the LPGA has thrived for 75 years and is the longest running women’s sports organization in the United States.
