David Graham inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame

One of Australian golf’s legends was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in St Andrews overnight – and not before time.

by Mark Hayes at Golf Australia.

An emotional David Graham joined Mark O’Meara, Laura Davies and late American course architect Albert Tillinghast as the 2015 inductees, bringing the total number of honourees to 150.

Graham’s remarkable career was finally given due recognition at the home of golf with his stellar resume — most famously including the 1979 US PGA and 1981 US Open championships – easily befitting the new WGHOF criteria.

The 69-year-old openly admitted he thought recognition of his 38 worldwide victories had passed him by.

And for the first time publicly, he speculated that his time as a “man without a country” might have cost him one of the sport’s highest honours.

“I wasn’t in Australia any more (at the height of my career). I was playing in America, but I was still an international player, and so I don’t know whether that had anything to do with the imbalance of what the requirement was,” said the former Melburnian who now splits his time between Texas and Montana.

“Like Bruce Devlin (and) Bruce Crampton, we all made decisions that some people said we defected (from) our country. Well, I never defected. I just left to go somewhere else so I could make a living.

“It had nothing to do with love of country. But I was always an Australian in America, and then when I went to Australia, now I was too much of an American, so I don’t know whether that had anything to do with it or not.”

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