Golf Central

On this day in 1910, the 300-pound US president William Howard Taft threw down the gauntlet to his northern neighbour, Albert Grey, the 4th Earl Grey, and governor-general of Canada, challenging Grey to a golf match to settle North America's "executive championship" over 18 holes and some fine stogies.

The beefy Taft, the 27th US president, was the first man in the Oval Office to admit to the public about his obsession with golf. Taft's match with Grey was slated for later in the summer at the Myopia Hunt Club in Maryland. In the stilted news style of the time, the New York Times reported: "Mr. Taft warned his distinguished opponent that this course was the hardest in the United States, and also boasted that he had made the eighteen holes in less than 100. The Earl was nothing daunted at this, and accepted the challenge forthwith ..."

It's a pity the North American "executive championship" died an early death, despite many world leaders now playing golf. Now there's a game at which Jean Chrétien would have smoked Dubya ...

And it was on this day in 1961 that Tommy "Thunder" Bolt, the PGA Tour star known for his volcanic temper, beat Gary Player by two shots to win the Pensacola Open, for his 15th and last PGA Tour win ...

In the real world: On this day in 1930 the Indian spiritual and political leader Gandhi set off from Sabarmati with 78 others on a 241-mile protest march to the sea. Gandhi was defying the British tax on salt, and in "stark" difference to the Americans, who dressed as Indians and chucked the British tea into Boston Harbour in 1775, Gandhi did his deal in a loincloth. And went to make salt from the sea ...

Strangely enough: On this day in 1969, cops busted George Harrison and wife Patti at their home in Surrey, where the police found 120 joints of cannabis. Which begs the question: Who the hell rolls 120 joints before a big smokeout? ...

In sport: On this day in 1903, the New York Highlanders baseball team were approved by team owners to join the American League. The Highlanders were unofficially known as the "Yankees" by their supporters, and by 1913, the name was officially changed. And the New York Yankees remain the most successful franchise in US sports history ...

So it's janma dhin ko subha kamana!, as they say in Katmandu, to Judy Garland's daughter, the singin' actress Liza Minnelli (62); to sensitive singer-songwriter James "You've Got A Friend" Taylor (60); to foxy actress Barbara Feldon (76), who played babe secret agent 99 in the brilliant spy comedy series Get Smart; to former Blur guitar-slinger Graham Coxon (39); and to junkie serial-bustee musician Pete Doherty (29) of Babyshambles ...

It's also a happy 54th to Hajime Meshiai, who has won 11 times on the Japanese Golf Tour, and happy 38th to Sweden's Mathias Grönberg, a four-time Euro Tour winner.

It also would have been a birthday for the great Russian ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky (b. 1889), but damn those pants are tight, and he chucked it all in in 1950 ... 'Til tomorrow! ...