Gary Hallberg has been a resident of Colorado for decades now, but his long resume of accomplishments while he lived in the Land of Lincoln led to his recent induction into the Illinois Golf Hall of Fame.
Hallberg, 59, was part of the 17th induction class of the IGHOF, which was honored on Friday in Glenview, Ill. Other inductees were two-time Masters champion Horton Smith, a World Golf Hall of Famer, and Gary Groh.
Hallberg (pictured at left in an Illinois PGA photo) went to high school in Barrington, Ill., just northwest of Chicago, and won a state high school championship and the 1976 Western Junior. He went on to win the Illinois Amateur, Illinois Open and the North & South Amateur twice each. One of his Illinois Open victories came as an amateur.
At Wake Forest, Hallberg became the nation’s first four-time first-team All-American, and he claimed the 1979 individual NCAA title. He was also low amateur at the 1980 U.S. Open, the same year he was named the PGA Tour Rookie of the Year.
Hallberg has won three times on the PGA Tour, once on the Web.com Tour and once on the PGA Tour Champions. When he completed the feat in 2010, he was just the fourth player to have won on all three of those tours. He also claimed the title in the 1988 Jerry Ford Invitational in the Vail Valley.
