Pádraig Harrington selected for the World Golf Hall of Fame

The Dublin native has become the third Irishman to be chosen for induction.

HALL OF FAME: Celebrating the announcement of his Patronage of the Irish American Partnership, internationally renowned golfer Pádraig Harrington, at Deerfield US Ambassador’s Residence. Pic:Naoise Culhane-no fee

Three-time major champion Pádraig Harrington has been selected to the World Golf Hall of Fame, becoming the third Irishman to be chosen for induction.

Harrington, who won the Open Championship in 2007 and 2008 and the PGA Championship in 2008, will join amateur great Joe Carr and Ryder Cup stalwart Christy O’Connor Senior in the game’s hall of fame.

“It's very humbling,” said Harrington after Wednesday’s announcement. “To be honest, I wasn't quite sure how you're gonna feel. Very humbled to be included with the people who have come before me. A lot of the people in the hall of fame I would have put up on a pedestal and now I'm there with them.”

Harrington will join Sandra Palmer as well as the late Johnny Farrell, Beverly Hanson, Tom Weiskopf and the 13 LPGA Founders in the World Golf Hall of Fame Class of 2024. Final selections were determined today by the World Golf Hall of Fame Selection Committee.

The elite group will become members of the World Golf Hall of Fame at the 2024 Induction Ceremony to be held on Monday, June 10, 2024 at Pinehurst Resort & Country Club in the Village of Pinehurst, N.C. coinciding with the 124th U.S. Open Championship.

Harrington played in three Walker Cups and six Ryder Cups before captaining Europe in the 2021 Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits. The WGHOF selection is the crowning achievement he says “pulls it all together.”

“It's a very nice validation and good sense of satisfaction that it ties my career together and brings it all together,” he said. “You know, I've always said that in my career, I’ve done nice things in a very good progression – at each stage of progress. But this definitely pulls it all together.”

Harrington, 51, has continued to excel on the PGA Tour Champions, winning four times including the U.S. Senior Open in earning rookie-of-the-year honors. His senior success add to his six PGA Tour titles and 15 European Tour victories.

He was voted PGA Tour player of the year by his peers after winning a pair of majors in 2008 and topped the European Tour Order of merit in 2006.

“I assume I get in based on my wins. I would like to think I got in based on my love of the game and my respect for the game, the etiquette of the game, the rules of the game,” he said. “Just my love of everything that there is about golf.”

Being only the third Irishman in the WGHOF with legends Carr and O’Connor Snr also left Harrington humbled.

“They were the two biggest names in golf growing up,” said Harrington, who spent time with both of them.

"Certainly to be included with them, they are the greats of Irish golf. As a kid I looked up to them so much and put them up on a pedestal, and in some ways I’m up there now myself.”