The word ‘legend’ is overused in sport. When it comes to the World Golf Hall of Fame, however, the list of inductees speaks for itself: Jack Nicklaus, Nancy Lopez, Tiger Woods, Sir Nick Faldo, Arnold Palmer, Annika Sorenstam, Bobby Jones, Babe Didrikson Zaharias, Patty Berg, Seve Ballesteros. You get the picture. Legends.
The next World Golf Hall of Fame induction will take place during the week of the 2027 Open, when the game’s oldest Major Championship returns to St Andrews.
We can have a pretty good guess. Inductees must be at least 45 years old during the year of the Induction Ceremony, or be at least three years removed from being an active participant.
By that standard, new competitors for consideration would include Justin Rose, Adam Scott, Sergio Garcia and Suzann Pettersen.
The current criteria calls for a competitor to have either (1) 15+ official victories and one Major Championship or Players Championship; or (2) 2+ Major/Players titles.
Just for a bit of fun, we've included the names of all those current players who we believe to be locked in (or thereabouts) for a place in the World Golf Hall Of Fame further down the line.
Rory McIlroy
The Northern Irishman is up to tied 17th on the list of most PGA Tour wins (29), and the career Grand Slam is complete after his nailbiting Masters victory in April.
He’s been the top dog in Europe, too, with his DP World Tour tally up to 20 (also includes his five Major Championships).
This is some haul - and he’s a long way off his fortieth birthday.
There’s not a lot left in the game for McIlroy to achieve, with his status as one of the game’s greatest-ever players well and truly secured.
More titles will follow, though, as well as more Ryder Cup points. His record in the biennial showdown wasn’t outstanding prior to Bethpage, but he’s now up to seventh on Europe’s all-time points list with 21.5, with a win percentage of 56.6.
On top of all this, he’s been a terrific ambassador for the sport.
Suzann Pettersen
Norwegian star Suzann Petersen enjoyed a highly successful career from 2000 until 2019, when she retired following her winning Solheim Cup putt.
Petersen, who won the Norwegian Amateur five times in a row between 1996 and 2000, finished her career with 19 professional titles plus two Major Championships.
As well as representing her country in the 2016 Rio Olympics, she made an incredible nine Solheim Cup appearances.
Nelly Korda
Everyone knew how good a player Nelly Korda was before her remarkable season in 2024, but that trophy-laden campaign really hammered it home.
As Scottie Scheffler was dominating the PGA Tour, Korda was displaying equally impressive form on the LPGA Tour.
In the end, Korda signed off for the season with seven wins and an additional four top-10 finishes.
Just to underline the kind of level she was playing to, six of those victories came in her first eight starts.
Korda is also a two-time Major champion, and she won gold at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Jordan Spieth
Only the PGA Championship stands in the way of Jordan Spieth and golfing immortality.
The 32-year-old has time on his side to complete the career Grand Slam, although he’s certainly not the player he was when he burst onto the scene a decade or so ago.
Between 2015 and 2017 he hoovered up the Masters, US Open and Open Championship.
In 2016, Spieth won the Australian Open for the second time in three years, which made him only the second American after Nicklaus to win the title multiple times.
His PGA Tour tally stands at 13, a number that will surely increase despite the Texan struggling to replicate the form he showed when he pulled on the Green Jacket in 2015.
Justin Rose
The Englishman turned 45 in July and, like a fine wine, he seems to get better with age.
Rose has recorded more victories on the PGA Tour than any other English golfer (12), the latest of which came at the 2025 FedEx St Jude Championship.
That’s more than Faldo, and although Sir Nick won six Major Championship titles, he didn’t get his hands on the US Open trophy, which of course Rose did at Merion in 2013.
It remains his only Major Championship victory, although the former World No.1’s CV features a number of other huge titles and honors: Olympic Gold Medalist (2016), 11 DP World Tour wins, recipient of the Payne Stewart Award (2021), a seven-time Ryder Cup player (five wins and 16 wins from 29 matches). We could go on.
Henrik Stenson
The Swede has won tournaments all over the world and on multiple tours - so he ticks that box.
He also relished the opportunity to compete in the Olympics, winning a silver medal in Rio in 2016, and although he was stripped of the Ryder Cup captaincy for 2023 after defecting to LIV Golf, The Iceman’s resume is very impressive.
In 2016, he contested one of the greatest-ever Open Championships, winning his own personal duel with Phil Mickelson to lift the Claret Jug.
Dustin Johnson
Let’s not forget just how good Dustin Johnson was at his peak - he was pretty darn impressive.
The former World No.1 chose to sign with LIV Golf at a time when he was still right up there - and he’s been rather up and down ever since.
Whether the 41-year-old will ever add to his 24 PGA Tour wins remains to be seen, although it appears unlikely given that he still plies his trade on the Saudi-backed circuit.
However, you can’t entirely rule the American out of having another run at a Major Championship - just look at Rose, who is four years Johnson’s senior.
Whatever happens, the easy-going Johnson is a multiple Major champion.
In 2020, he blew the field away at Augusta, adding the Green Jacket to the US Open he landed at Oakmont Country Club four years earlier.
Scottie Scheffler
‘We’ll never see another player as dominant as Woods,’ they said.
Never is a long time. However, we certainly didn’t expect someone to come along in the same mold as Woods quite so soon.
Scheffler won’t have thought this far ahead, but he’s already a shoo-in for the World Golf Hall Of Fame - at just 29 years old.
Just how many PGA Tour titles will he have reached by the time he turns 45?
At the time of writing, as we head into the Fall Series, he’s already notched up 19 of them, which includes four Major Championships.
The American will surely follow in McIlroy’s footsteps and join that exclusive Grand Slam club.
All he needs now is the US Open, which could well come at Shinnecock Hills in 2026.
Lydia Ko
With 23 LPGA Tour wins, including three Major Championships, it’s safe to say the 2024 Olympic gold medalist is a lock in in for the World Golf Hall Of Fame.
It’s quite staggering what the New Zealander has already achieved, with so many of her biggest triumphs coming when she was still a teenager.
Ko was inducted into the LPGA Hall of Fame following her victory in the Paris Olympics, making her the youngest to ever do so under the current criteria.
Jon Rahm
The Spaniard is another player to have defected to LIV Golf, but he racked up a fair few titles before joining the breakaway circuit.
The former US Open and Masters champion has 11 PGA Tour titles to his name, plus a number of big victories on the European circuit.
Questions were raised when he opted to join LIV, and at times he hasn’t been at his competitive best in the 54-hole events - but the 30-year-old is starting to look sharp again, especially in the Majors.
The great Seve won five Major Championships. How many will Rahm finish his career with?
He’ll surely add to the two that he already has tucked away.
Martin Kaymer
Two of the German’s three PGA Tour victories are Majors: the PGA Championship (2010) and US Open (2014) - and the other is the Players Championship (2014).
We’re talking about a player for the big occasion, someone who holed the winning putt to seal the Miracle at Medinah in 2012.
The former World No.1, who also has 11 DP World Tour victories to his name, played in four Ryder Cups, winning three of them.
The man from Dusseldorf will surely join compatriot Bernhard Langer in the World Golf Hall Of Fame one day.
Jin Young Ko
South Korea’s Jin Young Ko first joined the LPGA Tour in 2018, and she’s already racked up 15 victories on the American-based circuit, including two Major titles.
Ko is also a 10-time winner on the KLPGA Tour, and in June 2023 she broke Lorena Ochoa’s record for most career weeks (159) spent as Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings No.1.
Adam Scott
The Australian merits a place in the World Golf Hall Of Fame simply for having one of the best-looking golf swings.
When he does take his place alongside the greats of the game, it will largely be down to the fact that he finally won a Major Championship - the 2013 Masters.
It was long overdue, and he could and probably should have won one or two more.
The former World No.1 also has golf’s unofficial fifth Major on his CV, the Players Championship, and a total of 11 DP World Tour wins.
Add those to the 14 he’s accumulated on the PGA Tour, and it’s not a bad collection.
Brooke Henderson
The Canadian star won her first title in August for more than two-and-a-half years, with her second victory at the CPKC Women’s Open.
It was her 14th title on the LPGA Tour, which includes two Major Championships (2022 Amundi Evian Championship, 2016 KPMG Women's PGA Championship).
The Olympian is also a three-time Bobbie Rosenfield Award winner (2015, 2017, 2018), an honor also known as the Canadian Press Female Athlete of the Year award.
Sergio Garcia
The fiery Spaniard may have said and done some things that have rubbed a few people the wrong way, but you’d still expect to see him inducted at some point.
His record on both the PGA Tour and DP World Tour cannot be questioned, with 11 and 16 wins on each, respectively, including the 2017 Masters.
A Players champion, Garcia has also amassed a whopping 28.5 points for Team Europe in the Ryder Cup - a record that will take some beating.
Justin Thomas
The American has struggled to find the form that made him such a strong Major contender a decade or so ago, but he still has plenty of time to turn a very good career into a great one.
The former World No.1’s 16 PGA Tour victories includes two PGA Championships, a Players Championship, and two World Golf Championships.
He’s also been one of USA’s most solid performers in the Ryder Cup, despite being on the losing side three times in his four appearances.
Brooks Koepka
Even if Brooks Koepka - who now plies his trade on LIV Golf - never lifts another Major Championship, with five to his name, he’s won more than some of the best players to have played the game.
His period of excellence in the game’s most prestigious tournaments felt rather brief, with those titles all coming in a blistering six-year spell.
Koepka not only successfully defended the US Open title he won in 2017, but he went back-to-back at the PGA Championship in 2018 and 2019.
Just for good measure, he lifted the famous Wanamaker Trophy again in 2023.
Inbee Park
The South Korean is another winning machine: 21 LPGA victories, seven Majors… and counting.
She is already a member of the LPGA Hall of Fame - that box was ticked when she was just 27 years old.
A winner of the US Open at just 19 years old, Park won the title again in 2013, when she became only the fourth LPGA Tour player to win three Majors in a calendar year.
In 2016, Park claimed the first Olympic gold in women’s golf since 1900.
Will we see her compete again? Park, 37, had her second child last year and has not played on the LPGA Tour since the 2022 AIG Women’s Open at Muirfield.
ZACH JOHNSON
With a dozen PGA Tour victories, the American might not go down in history as a prolific winner, but two of these titles were huge.
If players could pick just two places to win Major Championships, you have to think a fairly high percentage would choose Augusta National and the Old Course at St Andrews.
"I'm grateful. I'm humbled. I'm honored," Johnson said after putting a Claret Jug on his CV alongside his Green Jacket.
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