10/12/25
Seattle’s Jim McLean will add another Hall of Fame induction to his ever-growing résumé. The PGA of America announced the 2025 Hall of Fame Class, and McLean is one of the inductees. The ceremony will take place at the 109th PGA Annual Meeting on November 5, 2025, in Frisco, Texas.
McLean is one of the world’s most talented PGA of America Golf Professionals. His school, the Jim McLean Golf School at Doral, has grown to a worldwide school with locations in multiple countries. McLean has taught major champions such as Gary Player, Greg Norman, Bernhard Langer, Curtis Strange, Gary Woodland, Cristie Kerr, Ben Crenshaw, Keegan Bradley, and many, many other highly successful PGA and LPGA Tour golfers. McLean has been a frequent contributor to Golf Digest, Golf Magazine, and Golf Illustrated, while authoring 15 books. In 2003, the PNGA inducted him into its Hall of Fame, and with his induction into the PGA of America’s Hall of Fame, McLean now sits in six different Halls of Fame.
McLean played junior golf in and around Seattle. He went to high school at Glacier High School (which no longer exists), and his father bought him a series of lessons with the legendary Al Mengert at Tacoma Country and Golf Club. McLean also frequented Rainier Golf and Country Club as a youth golfer. He took off as a 16-year-old, winning back-to-back Washington State Junior Championships and the PNGA Men’s Amateur Championship three times in four years, including back-to-back times in 1971 and 1972, a feat that hadn’t been accomplished until this summer by Sam Renner. McLean also won the 1970 Seattle Amateur, the 1970 Northwest Open, the 1971 Pacific Coast Amateur, and played in a pair of U.S. Opens and the 1971 Masters. McLean went to the University of Houston and was an All-American.
Legendary sportswriter Grandland Rice suggested the PGA of America have a Hall of Fame to remember the greatest ambassadors of golf. The first class was inducted in 1940, which included the names of Chick Evans, Tommy Armour, Walter Hagen, Francis Ouimet, and Bob Jones. Since then, many of the most influential names in golf have joined those legends of the game in the illustrious Hall of Fame.
McLean is one of the greatest golfers to come from Washington and is one of the most successful teachers of the game that has ever existed. He would spend his summers as a youth golfer in the short game area at Rainier Golf and Country Club, practicing until 9:30 or 10 PM each night. Despite his global success, McLean remains connected to home and is one of the best representatives of Washington golf.
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