Golf Central

Sandy Herd (left): "Vardon and Braid? Easy when you know how mate."

Forget for a moment, if you will, today’s golf ball, with its hundreds of dimples, radical aerodynamics, multiple layers and fancy urethane cover. Let us take you back to this very day in 1902, when Alexander “Sandy” Herd made one heck of a bold statement by winning The Open Championship at Hoylake with the much criticised Haskell ball. The idea of Coburn Haskell, an employee of the Goodrich Tyre and Rubber Company in Ohio, the ball comprised an elastic thread wound around a rubber core, which was then encased in an outer cover of gutta perch.

The previous “gutty” ball was prone to breaking mid air, yet Herd was still the only player at Hoylake to favour the one-piece ball. The proof, however, was indeed in the pudding, as “Sandy” played four rounds in 307 strokes, beating the great Harry Vardon and James Braid by one stroke to win the championship.  Herd well and truly silenced the sceptics by showing how much of a difference the Haskell made to the best players’ games, and as a result, demand for the ball skyrocketed.

There was a big upset on this day in 1925 when Scot Willie McFarlane defeated Bobby Jones in a playoff to win the US Open at Worcester Country Club. Beating Bobby Jones clearly wasn’t enough for Willie, however, who set a US Open single round low-score record of 67 in the second round, and, rather bizarrely, became the first US Open champion to wear eyeglasses.

Out in the world of political revolutionaries, on this day in 1878, Pancho Villa was born in San Juan Del Rio in Mexico. By the time he was assassinated in a T-Model ford in 1923, he had lived the life of a latter day Robin Hood. He ruled the Mexican state of Chihuahua, seized land to give to peasants, fought scores of battles against his right-wing enemies, hooked up with fellow revolutionary Emiliano Zapata and spent years as a fugitive. Apparently, in 1926, grave robbers decapitated his corpse and the skull is said to rest in the Skull and Bones tomb (the secret Yale society of which George W. Bush was a member) in New Haven, Conneticut.

In Ancient Greece in 470BC the Philosopher Socrates was born. Considered one of the founders of Western philosophy, he strongly influenced Plato and Aristotle and his work continues to form an important part of the study of philosophy. Principally renowned for his contribution to ethics, he was far more than just a thinker, and his valour in battle was well documented in the dialogues of Plato. Also, on this day in 1967, the Six-Day War began when the Israeli Air Force launched pre-emptive attacks on the air forces of Egypt, Jordan and Syria. The military might of Israel led to them gaining control of the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights, with the politics of the area still massively affected today.

And it’s Armando Saavedra! as they say in Argentina to 1991 US Walker Cup winner Mike Spossa (49), beast of Bermondsey Jade Goody (27), horrifically-coiffured Saxophonist Kenny G (42), pants-model turned actor Mark Wahlberg (37), and Freddie, guitar player of the family Stone (62).