Padraig Harrington, Sandra Palmer lead World Golf HOF class - ESPN

PINEHURST, N.C. — Padraig Harrington grew up in Ireland dreaming more about claret jugs and the Wanamaker Trophy than the World Golf Hall of Fame.

The Hall of Fame is largely an American thing, though Harrington fully understood that it was a label attached to the very best. That was the case particularly on the PGA Tour Champions when he heard the «Hall of Fame» reference to so many of his peers, from Bernhard Langer and Vijay Singh, from Ernie Els to Fred Couples.

«You kind of look at these guys and and you want to be one of them. You want to be part of it,» Harrington said. «And many of the guys on the Champions Tour, their careers were a little bit ahead of me so they were actually guys I would have looked up to when I was turning pro. They're guys I would have watched on TV at pro events.

»So it's nice to be part of that crowd."

Harrington was to take his place among them Monday night at the first World Golf Hall of Fame induction ceremony since the shrine moved from St. Augustine, Florida, to Pinehurst when the USGA established a second home.

It is on the second floor of the USGA Experience building.

Harrington, whose 21 worldwide wins include the The Open Championship in 2007 and 2008 and the PGA Championship in 2008, joins LPGA star Sandra Palmer as the only living inductees.

LPGA great Beverly Hanson, former Open Championship winner and golf course architect Tom Weiskopf and former U.S. Open champion Johnny Farrell were to be inducted posthumously.

Also being inducted were the remaining seven founders of the LPGA Tour — Alice Bauer, Bettye Danoff, Helen Dettweiler, Helen Hicks, Opal Hill, Sally Sessions and Shirley Spork — who will be going in as a group. The other six founders previous were inducted on their