MIDLOTHIAN — The Virginia Golf Hall of Fame will induct a four-member class at its 2025 Induction Ceremony, which will be held on October 21 at Salisbury Country Club in Midlothian.
The Class of 2025 includes Bill Battle, Don Ryder, Matt Sughrue and Pat Tallent.
Golf Channel’s Johnson Wagner will serve as the ceremony’s emcee. A former standout on the Virginia Tech golf team who is in the school’s Sports Hall of Fame, Wagner joined NBC Sports in 2023 and serves as an analyst for PGA Tour and majors tournament coverage. He also contributes as an analyst on Golf Central and Golf Central Live From studio news programming on Golf Channel, airing on site from the sport’s biggest events.
Bill Battle
William Cullen Battle (1921-2008) was most known in golf circles for his involvement with the United States Golf Association. Most notably, he was one of three Virginians to serve as USGA President, joining Harry Easterly, Jr., and Mark Newell.
Battle was initially elected to the USGA Executive Committee in 1978. During his tenure, he served as chair of various committees, including the Rules Committee. He established a subcommittee to work with college golf coaches to bring the USGA and college golf closer. He served as USGA President from 1988-89, and at that time was the principal negotiator for the USGA in the well-known suit of PING vs. USGA on the subject of grooves. After extensive negotiations, PING withdrew the suit, conformed its clubs to USGA standards, and acknowledged publicly that the USGA and the R&A should be the sole rule-making bodies for the game of golf.
Battle was a member of the USGA, the R&A, Farmington Country Club, Seminole Golf Club, Jupiter Island Club of Florida, Augusta National Golf Club, and Jack Nicklaus’ Captain’s Club at Muirfield.
Outside of golf, Battle had a decorated career in politics. He served as the ninth U.S. Ambassador to Australia from 1962-64 under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. The son of former Virginia governor John S. Battle, Bill served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and was awarded the Silver Star. After the war, he returned to the University of Virginia—where he had played on the golf team prior to WWII—and earned a law degree in 1947. He was later admitted to the Virginia bar.
Battle died in Charlottesville on May 31, 2008 after suffering a stroke.
Don Ryder
Ryder retired as The Omni Homestead Resort’s director of golf in July 2015 after a career that spanned more than 40 years. Ryder first began working as a doorman at the resort in 1973. A longtime friend of Sam Snead and a pretty good golfer in his own right, Ryder went from doorman to the resort’s head golf professional in the span of a weekend. Ryder considered Snead a mentor and passed down the former’s knowledge and core principles of keeping things simple and loving the game to thousands of golfers who took lessons at the resort during his tenure.
Ryder earned the VSGA’s President’s Award in 2016 and was on the inaugural Virginia Golf Hall of Fame selection committee. Snead was part of that inaugural class, one that was fittingly inducted in the Commonwealth Room at the Homestead.
Ryder’s playing resume included victories in the Middle Atlantic PGA’s Senior Championship, Southern Chapter Senior Championship, and Senior-Junior Championship. But one of the most important things for Ryder during his tenure was being a proud ambassador for Bath County, a place he’s called home his entire life.
Matt Sughrue
Sughrue, who turns 66 in September, cut his teeth on the golf team at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill from 1977-79. But his career really took off when he changed professions, refocused, and began playing senior golf. A former insurance executive and business owner, Sughrue changed professional gears at age 49, when he earned a master’s degree in counseling at Virginia Tech and became a clinical psychotherapist.
Sughrue’s client list included fellow golfers, musicians, surgeons, and other sports participants. Refreshed, Sughrue embarked on a successful senior career that has included appearances in 25 USGA championships and eight R&A championships. He’s a four-time U.S. Senior Amateur quarterfinalist and reached the final match of the event in 2016. He’s also played in the U.S. Amateur and U.S. Senior Open.
Sughrue continues in his pursuit of an elusive U.S. Senior Amateur title to this day. A resident of Arlington, Sughrue is an active member at Trump National Golf Club Washington D.C.
Pat Tallent
Golf waited patiently in the background. But once Tallent committed fully to the sport, his career took off.
Tallent’s first sport was basketball. He averaged 40 points per game for his high school team in Kentucky, which led him to George Washington University. After averaging 20.8 points per game in three varsity seasons, he was drafted by the Washington Bullets in 1976. His professional basketball career never took off, and his competitive endeavors eventually took him to golf.
He made the first of his 35 USGA championship appearances in 1987 at the U.S. Amateur, one of nine times he competed in that championship. Twenty years later at age 53, he won the VSGA Amateur Championship after barely qualifying for match play as the No. 32 seed. Tallent won the U.S. Senior Amateur Championship in 2014 and followed that up a year later with a victory in the British Senior Amateur.
Tallent won four VSGA Senior Four-Ball Championships, one with Bob Morris and three with fellow Virginia Golf Hall of Famer Keith Decker. Tallent’s athletic career has been widely recognized. Along with this honor, he has been inducted in the Middle Atlantic Golf Association Hall of Fame, the George Washington Athletics Hall of Fame, and the National Senior Amateur Golf Hall of Fame.
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The four new members bring the total Hall of Fame roster to 45 inductees. Previous Virginia Golf Hall of Fame classes, with the site of the Induction Ceremony, were: