Golf Central

On this day in 1982, Olympic distance runner Steve Scott set the record for the fastest round of golf on a regulation course, speeding around 18 holes at Dad Miller Golf Course in Anaheim, California in 29 minutes, 33.05 seconds.

A world-class miler who held the American 1500-meter record for 25 years until this year, Scott would have been the favourite for the Olympic gold in the mile in 1980 had the Americans not boycotted the Moscow Games. He's best known for winning the silver in 1500 in the World Championships in Helsinki in 1983, and running 136 sub-4-minute miles in his career, more than any other runner in history.

Scott, now 51, is also a pretty good golfer. So how did his attack on the speed golf record go back in '82 ...?

Quite well, actually. Carrying only a 3-iron, Steve raced between holes and got around the 6,025 yard track in only 92 strokes. Don't think that's impressive? That's a golf shot every 19.27 seconds ...

Being mostly flat, Dad Miller set up well for Scott's sub-30-minute round. And his score is pretty amazing too, considering the course features a 614-yard par-5 17th ... your humble golf correspondent once carded the same score as Scott on the same course in about 5 hours, so that's saying something.

Dad Miller Golf Course is an old-style municipal course, but it's not without its history, notwithstanding Scott's record speed-golf round. Tiger Woods played a number of his high-school rounds there and the course is set to become a Tiger Woods Learning Centre location ... Hmmmn. Tiger's awfully fit ... wonder how he would do at speed golf?

It was also on this day, in 1936, that the great golfer and IGWT Hall of Famer Gene Sarazen, who enjoyed stirring the pot, suggested that all PGA Tour events should be conducted at match play, because, as he said: "Stroke play week after week is too boring." After all these years, we think Gene still might be right ...

And on this day in 1939, New York's La Guardia Airport began operations, opening up the Eastern United States for a new breed of international golf travellers. It wasn't such good news in 1995 for globe-trotting rogue trader Nick Leeson, however, was was jailed for six years on this day for shady deals which helped take down Britain's oldest merchant bank, Barings.

That said, it's sun yat fai lok!, as they say in Hong Kong, to party-girl and chick-rock icon Britney Spears, the former good girl-gone-bad who is known for her sexy moves, tattoos, shaved head, and hopping out of cabs with no knickers. Oh yeah, and her single Baby One More Time, which some drunken slapper is now murdering at karaoke in your local pub ...

Musical birthdays also go out to Def Leppard bassist and former Sheffield United academy footballer Rick Savage (47); and Canadian warbler Nelly Furtado (29), who hit No. 1 in the UK with Justin Timberlake on Give It to Me this year.

It's also a full-grunted "happy birthday!!!" to former world No. 1 tennis starlet and nine-time Grand Slam winner Monica Seles.

It's a big day for golf birthdays, too. Dan Jenkins, the legendary Sports Illustrated and Golf Digest scribe, is 78; Jay Haas, winner of nine PGA Tour titles and three-time Ryder Cupper, is 54; and two-time PGA Tour winner Paul Stankowski is 38 (happy birthday, mate).

It also would have been a birthday for legendary US opera soprano Maria Callas, had not the fat lady sung for her in 1977.