Golf Central

On this day in 1996, 20-year-old Tiger Woods, making only his fifth pro start won the Las Vegas Invitational – his first win on the PGA Tour. Jack Nicklaus, the man Tiger's still chasing, said it best that day. 'Now that he’s gotten rid of that burden of the first win, there could be no stopping him.'

Only weeks before, Tiger had announced he was turning pro in Milwaukee to a $40m flurry of endorsement packages, saying 'Hello, world' to the assembled press and flashing that now-so famous Tiger grin. But there was no guarantee that Woods would do well enough on the Tour to earn his card, or avoid a trip to PGA Tour Qualifying School.

For a majority of golf’s pundits, it all smacked of too much, too soon.

Las Vegas fixed all of that. Storming back with a 64 in the final round, Tiger showed for the first time his unique ability to scare the bejeezus out of older, wiser heads – and when Davis Love III, then one of the top players in the world, faltered in the stretch, Tiger was there to bounce and beat Love on the first playoff hole.
  
Also, on this day in 1928, Leo Diegel, a Michigan boy who had taken up a dodgy residence in Tijuana, Mexico, knocked off Al Espinosa 6 & 5 to capture the PGA Championship in Baltimore, Md. – stopping Walt Hagen’s run of titles in the event at four.

On this day in 1927 the first “talkie” movie burst onto the scene when Al Jolson’s 'The Jazz Singer' opened in Warner’s Theatre in New York City, prompting the last 80 years of people shushing others in cinemas worldwide.
   
So it’s Joyeux Anniversaire! as they say in Gay Paree to Hawaiian LPGA-er Pam Kometani (b.1964) and PGA Tour grinder Bob May (b.1968), Swedish Bond girl Britt Ekland (b.1942) and hunky period-role Welsh actor Ioan Gruffudd (b.1973).