Rocco for the Hall of Fame!

Okay, it's a little early to be advocating that explicitly. But we can always hope! The occasion for the hope is the fact that, in Rocco Mediate's Senior (er, um, Champions) Tour debut, he just shot an eleven-under 61 to take a three-shot lead heading into the last round. He's a decent bet to win. Now, people always win their Senior Tour debut, or at least it's kind of a thing that happens a lot, because the youngest players on that tour have a noticeable advantage and one typically debuts immediately after turning 50. Still, Rocco could be one of those people who goes out and has himself a great Senior Tour career after only a decent PGA Tour career.

And the thing is, according to the rules, you're eligible for the Hall of Fame if you have 20 wins between the regular and Senior PGA Tours. Rocco only won 6 times on the regular tour, so he'd need 14 Senior Tour wins to qualify; that would place him T17 on the current list of players with the most Senior victories. Now, most of the people who are qualified for the Hall of Fame ballot through the combined regular/senior wins criterion and most of whose wins have come from the Senior Tour are not in the Hall of Fame. Hale Irwin has the most Senior wins all-time, with 45 and 7 majors, and is in the Hall of Fame, but on the strength of his 20 PGA Tour wins and 3 US Open Championships. Lee Trevino's second with 29 wins and 4 majors, and is also in the Hall of Fame, but on the strength of his 2 US Opens, 2 British Opens, and 2 PGA Championships. Then we get Gil Morgan and Miller Barber, with senior careers totalling 25 wins, 3 majors and 24 wins, 5 majors, respectively. But neither of them won a regular major, or won more than 11 PGA Tour events, and neither is in the Hall of Fame. Rocco would be very much in their category, even if he has a great senior-tour career. So, why do I think he might sneak his way into the Hall of Fame when other players with similar resumes to his potential have not?

Because of Torrey Pines. Because of Tiger Woods. Because of the 2008 U.S. Open, and the playoff, and the agony. Because he was the foil for one of the greatest moments in golf history, and because if one shot had gone differently over those first 90 holes he would've been the protagonist of an at-least-as-great moment. Because he's Rocco, and he is genuinely famous. Yeah, he's famous for one moment, not for a long glorious career. Roger Maris, who spent a very long time holding the single-season home run record, is not in the baseball Hall of Fame, and never came that close to it. But if Rocco really does have a renaissance on the Senior Tour, and racks up well over a dozen wins with some majors thrown in, then you could add to his single shining moment a genuinely great senior career, and given that there exists a Senior Tour ballot-qualification pathway, that ought to count for something. Neither the shining moment nor the senior resurgence would on its own justify his enshrinement, but if Rocco can combine them, I think he would deserve it.