Ascribing blame in golf's hall of fame
How the WGHOF gets its voting wrong; Stray Shot: is anybody out there tuning in?
Newly elected MLB hall of famers Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner (New York Yankees/Getty Images)
I eagerly watched the Baseball Hall of Fame voting results this week.
Over the years, I have become increasingly focused on baseball. Changes like the pitch clock and larger bases have improved the game's viewing experience, creating better pace and more production.
But getting back to the Hall of Fame voting, it’s been a few days since the announcement that Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner reached the threshold for induction into Cooperstown, and the media is still in a frenzy over why Suzuki was not a unanimous selection.
Everyone wants to know who the lone writer is who left a checkmark off of their ballot for Japanese superstar.
What I love about all of this is that the voters are the ones who cover the game and it’s a lone journalist that made that choice to keep Suzuki from becoming the second Hall of Famer to get 100 percent of the vote.
Baseball didn’t have the MLB commissioner or a manager or even former players and Hall of Famers getting involved in the selection. Only members of the media in the Baseball Writers Association of America.
The process made me wish golf’s hall of fame still held the same fascination.
The three baseball players selected will be celebrated in Cooperstown, New York, in late July, and nothing beats Hall of Fame week with a lot of pomp and circumstance and a baseball game.
Now, I turn to the game of golf.
Why does golf have a shell of shrine for the World Golf Hall of Fame?
Why do millions trek every year to a small hamlet in central New York to a town that is singularly focused on just one thing — baseball?
Unfortunately, the HOF concept has been lost in golf's hierarchy.
First founded in 1974 at Pinehurst, North Carolina, the World Golf Hall of Fame stayed in the Sandhills for 10 years before being moved to a dedicated building in St. Augustine, Florida. Unfortunately, the move was never as successful as hoped. In 2024, a scaled down WGHOF was moved back to Pinehurst.
Most of the collection on display in St. Augustine was sold off or returned to the players or their families, making the current hall more of an adjunct space in the USGA offices outside the entrance to Pinehurst Resort and it’s famed No. 2 course.
Unlike the baseball or football hall-of-fame weeks, where a game is played in conjunction with the induction ceremonies, golf’s celebration is limited at best and typically is not even at the WGHOF.
The induction of those enshrined takes place a various ports worldwide. While different, it loses the effect of solidifying the hall of fame's stature in the golf community.
However, with all those flaws and drawbacks with the World Golf Hall of Fame, the biggest issue is that the media has little to say about the voting outcome.
About 10 years ago, the World Golf Hall of Fame decided that the media was not selecting — or was too selective — to remain worthy of voting on candidates for induction. It took away the media vote and established a hall-of-fame selection committee that only includes a couple of media members who were presidents of the Golf Writers Assocation of American and the Assocation of Golf Writers (Europe). The rest of the voting committee is made up of players and administrators in golf.
With limited media involvement, input by those who cover the game is practically non-existent.
Macdonald Smith circa 1926 (Bettmann Archives via Getty Images)
A perfect example of the problem that creates is the case of Macdonald Smith.
Smith won 29 times (25 on the PGA Tour) including three Western Opens back when the Western was considered a major championship. Yet Smith has received little attention from the WGHOF voters, likely because the selection of deceased golfers is not of interest, and the focus is more on still-alive players who can attend the ceremony and create a show to celebrate.
It’s embarrassing that Macdonald Smith is not in the WGHOF yet former President George H.W. Bush is.
With journalists voting, there is more voice for the best players — even late ones — to be considered without the focus on picking player that will make a media splash.
Baseball gets it right in how its Hall of Fame is run and the voting is administered, mainly because MLB is not involved in the process.
Hopefully, golf will get the message and restore the process.
Stray Shot: Golf’s TV ghost land
By Peter Kaufman
Is anyone watching?
Well, it depends. No one we know watches LIV Golf, yet they just struck a new television deal with Fox Sports, which includes payment for rights to broadcast the Saudi-backed league.
Far from going away, LIV is somehow figuring out how to not just hang around the hoop pending some deal between the Public Investment Fund and the PGA Tour, but actually behaving like it might actually be standing on its own. Which won’t exactly hurt its negotiating position with the Tour.
Television ratings for the PGA Tour have been plummeting for a couple years. Were you tuning in to Golf Channel to watch Sepp Straka win the American Express last weekend? Me neither. The PGA product continues to list in the water — watered down if you will — by the LIV defectors.