Vijay had a nice week -- Hall of Fame induction and a win in Houston. Harry How/Getty Images

Imagine inducting Randy Johnson into the Baseball Hall of Fame the week he pitched that perfect game last season. Or enshrining Shaquille O'Neal into the Basketball Hall of Fame, say, in the middle of the NBA playoffs. Absurd, huh?

Yet last week, golfer Vijay Singh was voted into the World Golf Hall of Fame, then went out and won the Shell Houston Open and remained the No. 2 ranked player in the world.

Hall of Fame induction in other sports has always been a reward once a player's career is done. And here's Singh, who was No. 1 in the world ranking until Tiger Woods unseated him with that Masters victory, in the prime of his career. With so many other worthy candidates waiting for Hall entry, many voters (who are members of the media and other golf dignitaries) felt that the timing was awkward. There was no rush.

So how did Singh, at 42 the youngest man ever voted into golf's hall, get the nod? He kind of sneaked in. He didn't receive the necessary 65 percent of the vote required. However, Hall rules state that if no player gets the minimum 65 percent, then the player with the most votes over 50 percent will be admitted. Singh received 56 percent of the votes, edging out Larry Nelson (55 percent).

The vote totals should tell you how confusing this whole timing issue is. Singh has 26 wins (including Houston). That's more than Johnny Miller, Gary Player or Raymond Floyd, to name a few. He has won three major championships. That's more than Greg Norman, Ben Crenshaw or Tom Kite, to name a few more. He should have been a Phi Slamma Jamma dunk for the Hall. His credentials are open and shut. The fact that he isn't the most media-friendly player had little or nothing to do with his vote total. It was the timing.

The problem, of course, is that old golfers never die -- they just fade away. While that may sound like the kind of cliche news commentator Paul Harvey lives for, the truth is that golfers' longevity, thanks to the Champions tour, makes it difficult to find an appropriate time to induct them into the Hall of Fame.

So is there a solution to this problem? Currently, the Hall requires male players to be 40 years old, have played 10 years on the PGA Tour and have 10 wins or at least two victories in major championships and/or the Players Championship. You could bump the minimum age to 45 but would that help? Does anybody think Singh is slowing down and he won't be doing what he's doing right now in three more years?

The minimum age could be raised to 50, when players usually jump to the Champions tour. Except Jay Haas is 51 and he's still playing well on the regular tour. Fred Funk just won the prestigious Players Championship at 48, which means he'll be exempt on the PGA Tour for five more years if he so chooses.

The best answer simply may be, get used to it. Annika Sorenstam is still in her mid-30s and she's been in the Hall of Fame for several years. That's because the LPGA has the best Hall of Fame system. It's a set of criteria, in black and white, of what you have to do to qualify. Simply earn 25 points -- two points for a major championship, one point for a regular tour win. There are a few other technicalities but basically, that's it.

I have suggested a similar system for men's golf for years, awarding a point for making a Ryder Cup team, winning the Vardon Trophy for scoring average or leading the Tour in money won. That eliminates the subjectivity of having writers cast ballots. I doubt that system (or something similar) would ever be put into place, and it's probably just as well -- there are already too many players in the Hall who wouldn't qualify under this system.

The current voting is goofy. To me, Lanny Wadkins, Larry Nelson, Hubert Green and Henry Picard should be in the Hall already. None finished in the top three of this year's balloting, although Curtis Strange, another worthy candidate, did finish third. And I would argue strongly for old-timers such as Doug Ford, Craig Wood, Macdonald Smith and Denny Shute to be enshrined, but nobody's voting for them, either.

It seems clear the voters don't have much sense of history -- at least, nothing that happened prior to 1990. Why these legends of the game have been overlooked so long, and why some veterans' committee hasn't already enshrined them, baffles me.

Some good may come of this flawed election. A bandwagon may start for Nelson, whose career has long been overlooked and who was curiously passed over for Ryder Cup captaincy -- a job that likely would've carried enough exposure to get him inducted, just as it did for Crenshaw after he headed the 1999 Ryder Cup team.

I'll go out on a limb right now and predict that Nelson will make the Hall next year. Based on this year's vote, I'll predict that Strange and his back-to-back U.S. Opens will get in next year, too.

Then, perhaps, voters will take a closer look at two of the best competitors of their generation -- Green and Wadkins. Green had 19 wins and two majors. Wadkins won only one major championship, yes, but his 21 wins exceeds the victory totals of Crenshaw, Kite, Hale Irwin, Norman, Payne Stewart and Nick Price -- all Hall of Famers.