Lorena Ochoa qualified for the World Golf Hall of Fame, via the LPGA points system, when she won the Corona Championship on April 13, 2008.
Ochoa was only 26 years and 4 months old at the time of her qualification. Because the LPGA also requires 10 years of service time, Ochoa won't be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame until 2012.
While Ochoa is very young for a Hall of Famer, she is not the youngest LPGA golfer to qualify via the points system. Karrie Webb was only 25 years, 7 months old when she earned the required 27 points to qualify.
Se Ri Pak (26 years, 7 months) and Annika Sorenstam (29 years, 5 months) are other "youngsters" to earn qualification.
Is does appear a little odd for someone 26 years to old to be getting in to the Hall of Fame, doesn't it? Aren't Halls of Fame for athletes a little bit older, people who are usually retired already?
Some people look at the the very young LPGA Hall of Fame qualifiers of recent years and decide that it's too easy for an LPGA golfer to get into the Hall. That the LPGA should raise the required points from 27 to something higher.
But I say that's completely wrong. In fact, the LPGA's qualification requirements are much more stringent than those of just about any other sports Hall of Fame you can name. Almost all other halls select their inductees through a vote (usually voters are made up of some combination of Hall of Fame members, sports officials and media who covered the sport). That always leads to controversial selections, and controversial omissions.
The LPGA, by contrast, has hard-and-fast criteria for induction: Earn 27 points, or you don't get in. (Points are earned thusly: 2 points for winning a major; 1 point for winning a "regular" tournament, the scoring title or the Player of the Year award).
The true superstars of women's golf do manage to pile up those points very quickly. But the 27-point level is very difficult for others to reach.
Take, for example, Dottie Pepper. Pepper won 17 times in her LPGA career, including three majors. She won a scoring title and a Player of the Year award, plus a money title and played on six Solheim Cup teams. Yet she's not in the Hall of Fame. She earned "only" 22 points. Curtis Strange had a very similar career on the PGA Tour. He won 17 tournaments, including two majors (one fewer than Pepper); he never won a scoring title and was Player of the Year once; he did win three money titles and was on five Ryder Cup teams. If the LPGA points system applied to Strange, he'd have 20 points, two fewer than Pepper. But Pepper isn't in the hall of fame, Strange is.
Consider Laura Davies. A 20-time winner with four majors who was Player of the Year once. I think everyone will agree that any PGA Tour player who won four majors and 20 titles, plus a Player of the Year award, would be in the hall of fame. But Davies isn't. She has "only" 25 points, two shy of the 27 points required of LPGA Tour golfers.
Hale Irwin, Greg Norman and Ben Crenshaw would not be in the World Golf Hall of Fame if they had to meet the LPGA induction standards. That should put to rest an notion of the LPGA requirements being too "easy."
