Golf Central

On this day in 1992, just weeks after a fire devastating his 12,000-square foot home in Indian Creek Island, Florida, the Hall of Famer Raymond Floyd capped his PGA Tour career with his 22nd victory, edging Keith Clearwater and Fred Couples at the Doral-Ryder Open with a score of 272. The win at age 49 also cemented a place in the PGA Tour record books for the long-serving Floyd, who tied Sam Snead's mark for the longest interval between first and last victories on the tour. Floyd's first win came way back in 1963 at the St Petersburg Open Invitational.

The Doral win only partly soothed the pain of losing his home for Floyd. Floyd's posh estate on the waters of Biscayne Bay had long been a party gala spot during the week of Doral. And while his wife Maria and three children safely made it out of the blaze, the home was a total wreck - resulting in the loss of more than three decades of Floyd's treasured memorabilia from his golf career ...

It was also on this day in 1968, that Tommy Moore, aged 6, of Hagerstown, Maryland, became one of the youngest people to shoot a hole-in-one when he aced the 145-yard No. 4 hole at Woodbrier Golf Club in Martinsburg, West Virginia. In a footnote, Tommy also recorded an albatross on the par-5 14th at Pinehurst No. 5 at the age of 13 in 1975 ...

And, today is International Women's Day. Don't know what to say about that, really, except that if you're a woman, Happy Women's Day! ... You go girl! ...

In the real world: Allied forces moved large numbers of troops across the Rhine River on this day in 1945, signaling the impending end of the Second World War in Europe. The breakthrough occurred when American troops captured the Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine at Remagen, Germany and brought tanks across, despite the Germans' last-ditch attempts to blow up the span ...

Strangely enough: On this day in 1875, the brilliant Scottish inventor Alexander Graham Bell received a patent for his new long-distance communications device, otherwise known as the telephone ... However, it took another 50 years exactly before the first successful trans-Atlantic radio-telephone connection was made, between New York City and London ...

In sport: On this day in 1987, Mike Tyson became the youngest undisputed heavyweight champion of the world in boxing history at age 20, by defeating James "Bonecrusher" Smith in a 12-round decision in Las Vegas to unify the WBA and WBC belts ...

So it's tulgan kunum menen! , as they say in Kyrgyzstan, to the still-smokin' hot former swimsuit model Kathy Ireland (45), a 40-handicap golfer and former presenting sponsor of several LPGA Tour events; to Lord Snowdon (78), Royal snapper and former squeeze of Princess Margaret; to The Happy Hooker, actress Lynn Redgrave (65); to R&B genius Ernie Isley (56) of the Isley Brothers; to creepy English warbler Gary Numan (50); to dour Czech former tennis World No. 1 Ivan Lendl (48), who is now a scratch golfer; to Cheryl James (44), "Salt" of Salt-N-Pepa; and to whiny-but-talented Keane songsmith Tom Chaplin (29).

It also would have been a birthday for the great French composer Maurice Ravel (b. 1875), who wrote the famed orchestral piece Boléro, had not he taken the final bow in 1937 ... 'Til tomorrow! ...