Golf Central

                         Ed "Porky" Oliver: The porky one, third from left, if you couldn't figure it out...

On this day in 1940, Ed "Porky" Oliver made a gaff of catasrophic proportions in the US Open at Ohio's Cantebury Golf Club. After teeing off early with five other golfers to beat an oncoming storm, Oliver finished with a 287 total, a core good enough to tie him for the lead with Lawson Little and Gene Sarazen. However, Oliver started his round 15 minutes before it was officialy scheduled to start, and tournament officials had no option but to disqualify him. It was always a case of being so near, yet so far for Oliver when it came to majors; he came second on three occasions and sadly passed away far too young at the age of 45 due to cancer.

Five years earlier on this day in history, Long-shot Sam Parks Jr. won the US Open at his home course, defeating Jimmy Thomson by two strokes at Oakmont Country Club. 25 years later in 1950, unkown ex-Army private Lee Mackey, shocked the golfing world by recording a tournament-record 64 at Meirion's East course to tyake a first round lead in the US Open. That was as good as it got for Mackey, however, who went on to card an ugly 81 in the second round.

At Heathrow airport on this day in 1968, James Earl Ray was arrested for the murder of Dr Martin Luther King. As with many of the high-profile political assassinations of that highly-charged era, doubt has constantly surrounded whether or not Ray actually pulled the trigger, with even Dr King’s son, Dexter, trying to campaign for the trial that Ray never received. He gained further notoriety on June 11 1977 when he and six other convicts escaped from Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in Petros, Tennessee, which is where he died in 1998, after serving 50 of his 99 years. And finally, on this day in 1984, homosexuality was declared legal in New South Wales.

So it’s a rowdy Chinnarat Phadungsil! as they say in Thailand to the LPGA lass from Dundee, Kathryn Marshall (51), ex-First Lady and mother of Dubya, Barbara Bush (83), boot-walker Nancy Sinatra (68), the brilliantly monikered Boz Scaggs (64), and uber-talented, bleedin’ annoying hip-hop apostle Kanye West (31).