Golf Central

On this day in 1945, a grateful Britain, still partying at the end of the Second World War like it was an extended hen-night, heard the crackly news announced from Royal and Ancient HQ in St Andrews that "normal golf service shall resume". This meant that the Open Championships, cancelled from 1940-45 due to the war, would be played at St Andrews again the next summer (won by Sam Snead), and where it had last been played in 1939, won by Richard Burton (not the actor).
    Touchingly, in the spring of 1946, Burton wrote to the R&A: "Dear Sirs, Please find enclosed my fee of five guineas for this year's Open. I will bring the trophy back when I come."
    Golf did not completely vanish from the landscape of wartime Britain however. Never-say-die British golfers carried on when they could, as this remarkable set of temporary rules issued by the Richmond Golf Club near London in 1941, bears out:
    "1. Players are asked to collect the bomb and shrapnel splinters to save these causing damage to the mowing machines.
    2. In competitions, during gunfire or while bombs are falling, players may take shelter without penalty or ceasing play.
    3. The position of known delayed-action bombs are marked with red flags at a reasonable, but not guaranteed, safe distance therefrom.
    4. Shrapnel and/or bomb splinters on the fairways, or in bunkers, within a club's length of the ball, may be moved without penalty, and no penalty shall be incurred if a ball is thereby caused to move accidentally.
    5. A ball moved by enemy action may be replaced, or if lost or destroyed, a ball may be dropped not nearer the hole without penalty.
    6. A ball lying in a crater may be lifted and dropped not nearer the hole, preserving the line to the hole, without penalty.
    7. A player whose stroke is affected by a simultaneous explosion of a bomb may play another ball. Penalty one stroke." (Courtesy Jack McCallum).
    Also, on this day Jack Nicklaus (1967) and Lanny Wadkins (1972) were winners of the old Sahara Invitational, pre-cursor to the erstwhile Las Vegas Invitational and today's Fry's.com Open.
    It was the end of an era in 1975 today for Spain's Generalissimo Franco, whose dictatorship ended after 36 years with Prince Carlos taking charge. In 1982, Aussie mum Lindy Chamberlain of "the dingo ate my baby" fame went down for the murder of her 9-week-old daughter, giving Meryl Streep another chance perhaps her most truly annoying acting turn. On the lighter-than-gravity side, hero astronaut John Glenn, who was the first American to orbit the earth, returned to space at the age of 77, 36 years after his first lift-off.
    And it's Suba Upan dinayak vewa!, as spin-master Muttiah Muralitharan might say (expletives deleted), to English Test cricket captain and Michael Vaughan OBE (33), who skippered England to that memorable Ashes victory in 2005, and who when not whingeing about this-or-that injury remains one of the game's most stylish batsmen. Despite all the injuries that keep him off the wicket, Vaughan has managed to keep his golf handicap at a nice tidy 10. That's the wartime spirit, Vaughney.
    And it's b-day high-fives all around as well to creepy-sexy actress and former Johnny Depp squeeze Winona Ryder (36); hit-and-miss actor Richard Dreyfuss (60); former Charlie's Angel Kate Jackson (59); and supermodel Yasmin Le Bon (43).