New names knocking on LPGA Hall of Fame door

One more great year will have Australian golfing star Karrie Webb knocking on the LPGA Hall of Fame door - only to be denied by time.

A change to the previously strict qualifications means the current generation will be eligible sooner for the most prestigious club in women's golf.

Players now only need 27 points to qualify but still face a mandatory period of 10 years on tour before induction.

Webb won six times this year, including her first major, shattered the LPGA Tour's scoring record for the Vare Trophy and won player of the year.

In just four years on tour the Queenslander has 20 points made up of 16 wins, a bonus for the major plus three awards.

And she probably won't be the first player to gather enough points for the Hall of Fame before her time.

LPGA Hall of Fame New names knocking on LPGA Hall of Fame door Alcott, Daniel gain entry to LPGA Hall of Fame

Annika Sorenstam, a 29-year-old Swede who joined the LPGA Tour only six years ago, needs just two points to reach the magic number.

Se Ri Pak might not be too far behind. The 21-year-old from South Korea already has eight victories, two of them majors, in her first two seasons.

It begs the question: Did the LPGA Tour set the bar too low when it changed its requirements?

Webb only makes it seem that way, although she should hardly be condemned for being so good.

"The way the LPGA is treated, if we play on a course and shoot 20-under, then the course is too easy, not that we played great golf," Webb said.

"But if we play Blackwolf Run (site of the 1998 US Open) and 6-over wins, then we can't play.

"This is the same thing. If no one gets in, the criteria is too tough. But it will be too easy if we get in under the 10-year period."

The LPGA Hall of Fame used to be the toughest to crack in all of sports.

It was based on a rigid set of standards that only 14 women had met - a sliding scale that began with 30 victories and five majors and ended with 40 wins and no majors.

Until the criteria changed, it risked becoming a memorial rather than a shrine.

"Do you want a Hall of Fame to have people in it? The way it is now, I don't think anyone else would get in," Juli Inkster said before the LPGA voted in the changes.

Without the changes, Inkster wouldn't have had a chance.

That would have been an injustice to leave out a woman with 22 victories and five major championships, one of only four players to complete the LPGA career Grand Slam.

It would have been a crime to leave out Beth Daniel with her 32 victories and one major.

Same with Amy Alcott, the first player inducted under the new criteria, who had five majors among her 29 victories.

Inkster and Daniel will be inducted in November next year in a ceremony Webb will attend.

Signing autographs here today on her 25th birthday, one Hall of Fame employee told her: "You'll be in there soon enough."

What Webb and Sorenstam have done in such a short period of time is more a reflection on their ability than an indictment on the LPGA Tour's new Hall of Fame criteria.

What women's golf has is simply the best two players of their generation - perhaps even two players history will show as among the best ever.