Bob Charles Into the Hall of Fame

And somewhere in Montana, David Graham thinks, "they screwed me again."

Bob Charles of New Zealand was the first lefty to win a major championship. He won quite a few tournaments in Australia and New Zealand, eight European Tour tournaments (counting also the British PGA circuit events that predated the European Tour), won six times on the PGA Tour, and including the 1963 British Open.

And for that, he's into the Hall of Fame, it was announced Wednesday. Good for him.

I've referenced the August issue of Golf magazine multiple times in the past few days. I don't normally find so much of interest in this mag, which I rank well behind Golf Digest, Golfweek and Golf World in quality. But the August issue had some good stuff in it.

What I'll reference now is the article about Australian David Graham, now a resident of Montana, and a sort of forgotten man of golf. Well, he would be a forgotten man of golf, except that magazines keep writing articles about how he's the forgotten man of golf. This is the third time in the past 18 months I've read the same article about David Graham, the forgotten man of golf. It's kind of hard to be forgotten when golf writers won't let you forget him.

But anyway ... Graham's story is an interesting, and in some ways a moving, one. A very accomplished player in his day, he stayed in golf by helping forge the Presidents Cup, and captained the Internationals in the first competition. He was supposed to captain the second International team, too, but - depending on who is telling the story - Greg Norman and Steve Elkington ganged up on him and got him fired.

Then he began his descent into obscurity, and wound up having major heart problems that will either result in his death or in a transplant (whichever comes first), and that prevent him from playing the game he loves. And boy, would he feel great if Jack called and invited him to visit Muirfield once more before the ticker goes, or if Arnie would call and say hello. And why isn't he in the Hall of Fame, anyway? (The moving part of the story is that it is clear that Graham would dearly love for his old friends to ring him up; his burning desire to re-visit his favorite places before his heart gives out for good is clearly deeply felt and sincere. So c'mon Jack and Arnie, don't make me read this story again next year - ring up David and make him happy.)

That's the David Graham story that keeps being told. In a sidebar to the story, Golf details what it calls "the Hall of Fame snub." His friend Bruce Devlin is quoted:

"Some people in there go in with less of a record than him. How do you put Isao Aoki in the Hall of Fame before David Graham?"

Hard to argue with that. For that matter, how do you put Isao Aoki in the Hall of Fame before Jumbo Ozaki? I mean, if you insist that someone from the Japan PGA deserves to be there, shouldn't it be Jumbo, who has 100 wins on the JPGA? Aoki won a lot in Japan, too, but not 100 times. OK, sure, Aoki won once on the PGA Tour and Jumbo never won outside of Japan. But does one tournament really make that much difference? Or is that Aoki once lost a duel with Jack Nicklaus at the U.S. Open?

Whatever, David Graham - with eight PGA Tour wins, including two majors - certainly is more deserving of Hall of Fame entry than is Isao Aoki.

And maybe Bob Charles.

But, then, Fuzzy Zoeller would have a right to be upset if David Graham got in before him, right? And Fuzzy probably will never get in - but Graham is almost guaranteed to get into. Because he can be elected by the international voters (or the veterans committee). And the international voters get to look at a group of candidates who were winners in Europe, in Japan, in Australia, in New Zealand, but - with the exception of multiple major championship winners - often don't otherwise stack up well in comparison to longtime PGA Tour players.

If Isao Aoki is in the Hall of Fame, then of course Bob Charles should be. And if Bob Charles is in, then of course David Graham should be. But if David Graham gets into the Hall of Fame, then so shouldn't Fuzzy Zoeller? It's a circle that leads to a whole bunch of golfers who were never in their own time thought of as all-time greats getting into the Hall of Fame.

Some of the international golfers who are or will be enshrined are the equivalent of baseball players who hit 500 home runs in Triple-A getting voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Then again, they can always argue, "Well, if Tommy Bolt and Chi Chi Rodriguez are in the Hall of Fame ..."