Somewhat lost in the maelstrom of Players Championship week was the news that five golf legends and a group composed of seven late LPGA founders were selected for induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame next year when the shrine relocates to Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina. It’s hard to argue that Pádraig Harrington, Sandra Palmer and the late Johnny Farrell, Tom Weiskopf and Beverly Hanson plus the rest of the LPGA founders not already enshrined were undeserving of this recognition.
Of interest to the amateur golf community is the fact that first-time finalist Jay Sigel was not selected. But there is more to the story.
A caveat: I was very involved in the effort to advance Sigel’s candidacy. I was asked by a group of interested amateurs and friends of Sigel to help them on his behalf. I was only too happy to do so, as I wrote in this space 10 years ago that I thought he should have a place in the WGHOF. I have no skin in the game; Sigel and I are not close friends, and there was nothing in it for me personally. I simply felt that his absence is a glaring omission from the hall. This is not a sour-grapes rant but rather a plea to reconsider one aspect of the selection process.
Sigel was nominated for the hall as a “contributor,” which is to say not a “competitor.” And yet, the greatest amateur since Bobby Jones in the eyes of many was the fiercest of competitors.
Consider that at age 38, Sigel won the U.S. Amateur at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, by defeating David Tolley, who was 16 years his junior, 8 and 7 in the final. A year later, Sigel defeated 22-year-old Chris Perry by the same 8-and-7 score to win the title at North Shore Country Club in Glenview, Illinois.
A middle-age man beating American college players: simply amazing. But during his prime, this wasn’t unusual for Sigel, 79, a lifelong resident of suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Among his victories were events that today are part of the Elite Amateur Golf Series, populated almost entirely by college players. Sigel won the Sunnehanna Amateur and the Northeast Amateur three times each. He also won the British Amateur in 1979.
Weeks after his 1983 U.S. Amateur victory, Sigel would claim his second USGA title of the year, the U.S. Mid-Amateur. It is an unprecedented feat that likely will not be matched. He would go on to claim two more U.S. Mid-Amateur titles, in 1985 and ’87.
For me, the most impressive item on his amateur résumé is the fact that he played in nine consecutive Walker Cup matches, including twice as the playing captain. That means that for 18 years, he was among the top 10 or so amateurs in the American game. That record, too, will go unmatched and is WGHOF-worthy in itself.
If you were to ask any of the dozens of players whom he played with and against on those Walker Cup teams, they would tell you that there were few competitors more ferocious than Sigel in the 1970s and ’80s.
“While I never competed head-on with Jay, I did play with him on three of his nine Walker Cup teams and two of his seven World Amateur Championship teams,” said Jim Holtgrieve, who won the inaugural U.S. Mid-Amateur title, in 1981, and was a two-time Walker Cup captain. “Other than Jack Nicklaus, Jay was the most focused, concentrated competitor I ever witnessed in my career. Jay Sigel never gave up.”
At age 50, Sigel turned pro and qualified for the Senior Tour, known today as PGA Tour Champions, winning eight times in 428 career starts spanning 14-plus seasons against many former PGA Tour stars of his generation.
“The amateur game of golf is the backbone of our game, so someone with Jay Sigel’s record deserves recognition.”
Curtis Strange
Jay Sigel should go into the World Golf Hall of Fame as a competitor. However, the process is not structured to allow it. There are only two categories for candidates: competitor or contributor. The competitor category considers only professional records. Consequently, only professional golfers, men and women, can go in as competitors. There is no pathway for amateurs. As a result, Sigel is lumped together with administrators, journalists, broadcasters, instructors and celebrities.
Never mind that WGHOF amateurs Chick Evans, Bill Campbell, and Glenna Collett Vare are identified as competitors. (Oddly, Carol Semple Thompson is identified as a contributor, and that’s not right either.)
This is just wrong, and it should be addressed before the next cycle comes around, presumably in 2025. I can assure you that there are professionals in the hall who share this viewpoint. One of them is Curtis Strange, who like Sigel is a Wake Forest alumnus.
“The amateur game of golf is the backbone of our game, so someone with Jay Sigel’s record deserves recognition,” Strange said.
The World Golf Foundation, the body that oversees WGHOF selection, needs to amend the process. There is precedent for this: the process has been tweaked many times over the years, and this is clearly one of those times when it should be amended again.
Call it the “Sigel rule,” if you will, because there is no one like him, and we won’t see another one like him again.
Should Sigel be inducted as current protocol calls for, it would be inconsistent with how Campbell, Evans and Collett Vare were treated. It also would be an injustice not only to Sigel but also to the amateur game. The message being sent is that amateur golf is not as important as it once was.
You won’t hear a word on this from Sigel. He is a proud man, but he did not and will not campaign for this recognition. He should not have to; it ought to be obvious to all concerned.
E-MAIL JIM
Top: Jay Sigel
Courtesy USGA Archives