Just the other day, the World Golf Hall of Fame announced that American Ken Venturi would be inducted into its ranks in March next year in the Lifetime Achievement category and, while widely acclaimed in the US golfing media, it again exposes the anomalies in the selection process for one of golf’s highest honours.
One is not to doubt Venturi’s qualifications as a 14-time winner on the PGA Tour, including the 1964 US Open, and his years as an analyst in golfing telecasts, but it is my opinion, shared by the way by other non-Americans, that there those far better credentialed who are continually ignored by the US dominated panel of “experts”.
Scottish golf writer John Huggan, a regularly visitor to our shores who writes a column for the Golf Australia magazine, has in fact resigned as a member of the voting panel in protest and has begun referring to the Hall of Fame as the Hall of Shame.
I still remain a member of the voting panel in maybe the forlorn hope that a single voice can right so many wrongs with the system. For years, this column has campaigned for the inclusion of the late Norman Von Nida and, while he remains on the ballot paper for selection in the International category, it seems he is never likely to gain the necessary 50 per cent of the vote needed for election.
Another Australian David Graham has also been snubbed. Indeed, he is no longer even on the International ballot paper, but remains a candidate in the Lifetime Achievement category. Graham is a winner of two US majors – the 1979 US PGA and the 1981 US Open – plus six other PGA events for a total of 37 worldwide victories. He has been on Augusta National’s Cup and Tee committee for the Masters, thus playing a key role in the setup of the golf course.
By sheer chance, the Venturi announcement coincided with the release of the biography – ITAL David Graham – From Ridicule to Acclaim ITAL – written by Russell James with the complete co-operation of Graham who is recovering at his Montana home after further heart surgery operation two months ago.
Graham is a complex bloke. The late Peter Dobereiner wrote of him: “(He) … is abrasive and dogmatically opinionated. He can convey an impression of arrogance which is not entirely without substance.” Peter Alliss, the great BBC golf commentator, once said of Graham: “He is a rather hard and sometimes bitter man.”
That is not the David Graham I’ve known. In the early 1970’s, two decades and then some more before email, he’d send a letter every month or so from the US with news not only of his progress but also other players. It made life easier writing a weekly column.
Certainly he appears bitter about his non-inclusion in the World Golf Hall of Fame, and rightly so. In the biography, he is quoted: “It is embarrassing and I think it shows the inadequacies that exist in it when some players are getting in without winning major championships because they’re from certain countries … I have no interest in being in there when I’m dead. If it’s going to happen they’d better do it while I’m alive. I’m not having my family there when I’m gone.”
Graham also addresses the controversy of the 1996 Presidents Cup when, just a few months from the series, a player mutiny by the International team saw him replaced as the International captain by Peter Thomson. There was obviously real dissention among the players with Graham but, according to the book, the primary ringleaders of the coup against him were Greg Norman, Ernie Els, Steve Elkington and Frank Nobilo.
ITAL David Graham – From Ridicule to Acclaim – is one of the better books about an Australian golfer. It is not a long read – 133 pages – and is published by Ryan Publishing: RRP $29.99 plus $4 p&h.