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"I was once asked by a member of my golf club
around the age of 14, he said, 'young Woosnam, what are you
going to do when you leave school?'" the diminutive Welshman
said at the New York ceremony.
"I said, 'I'm going to be a professional golfer, like my heroes,
Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player. I want to travel
the world, win golf tournaments and majors and become the best
golfer in the world.'
"He laughed, and he tapped me on the head and said, 'well, if
you want to try to achieve all that, you're going to have to
grow a little'.
"He was right. I did grow a little, about four inches."
Woosnam, who topped out at 5-feet 4-inches (162 centimeters),
went on to become a world number one and win a major
championship at the 1991 Masters.
The 59-year-old, who is affectionately known throughout the golf
world as 'Wee Woosie', was inducted on Tuesday along with
Americans Davis Love and Meg Mallon, and Mexican Lorena Ochoa.
Love offered a sobering reminder that golf is just a game by
commenting on the current global geo-political situation.
"We live in a country where life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness are at our core but we don't forget that just recently
golfers in Japan got pulled off of a course because of a North
Korea missile test," the 1997 PGA Championship winner said.
Ochoa, who retired at 28 to start a family, joked that writing
her inductee speech was probably harder than having a baby. She
recalled her junior days and what motivated her as a child.
"When I was eight, my dad told me if I qualified to represent
Mexico in the world championship, he would take me to
California. To tell you the truth, I just wanted to go to
Disneyland," she said to laughter.
(Reporting by Andrew Both in Jersey City, New Jersey; Editing by
John O'Brien)
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