Golf Central

On this day in 1912, in Fort Worth, Texas, a quiet gentleman who holds at least two of the records that Tiger Woods will probably never break, was born: the great legend, Byron Nelson. One thing that Tiger won't do for certain is to quit competitive golf while he's on top, as Nelson did at the age of 34 in 1946. But a year earlier, Nelson had a season that probably not even Tiger can match.

In 1945 (and despite the misconception that Nelson was competing against weakened fields because of World War II), Nelson won 18 tournaments on the PGA Tour, including a streak of 11 in a row. But those were different days ...

People make a big deal out of another of Nelson's marks: 113 straight finishes in the money on the tour. But in 1945, an 18th-place finish was only worth $180, hardly enough to cover expenses. By the end of his unbelievable 1945 campaign, the wise Nelson had spirited enough money away to retire to a ranch in his native Texas, and he stayed true to his word: never returning to full-time golf after a brief but brilliant pro career which lasted just more than 10 years.

Byron Nelson's career PGA Tour winnings over 10 years amounted to $182,000. In today's money, that's a little more than $2.1 million: A nice nest egg, to be sure, but hardly a goldmine for someone who is nearly always mentioned as one of the greatest golfers of all-time; and one whose records probably won't be matched or broken by the greatest ever, Tiger. It just goes to show how much golf has changed ...

It's a Monday, so you might have a pub quiz on. With that in mind, it's time for us to arm you with your weekly dose of useless trivia, so that you can show up the quizmaster. Here are two nuggets we dug up:

• It was on this day in 1957 that the USS Nautilus, the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, completed the 60,000th nautical mile on the ship's log. Why is that significant, you might ask? Aha, Mr Quizmaster, because that matched the nautical miles logged by the Nautilus immortalised in Jules Verne's fictional 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea ...
• And it was on this day, that the world's richest man, mega-billionaire Bill Gates, was the victim of common assault in Belgium. Yep, but instead of nicking Bill's oversized wallet, what did the assailant do? He hit the Microsoft chairman in the face with a cream pie. Take that Bill! ... and take that, Mr Quizmaster! ...

That said, it's prettige verjaardag!, as they say in Flanders, to a couple of handy celebrity golfers who have never said "No" to a freebie round: The death-rocker turned 5-handicapper Alice Cooper is 60 years old today; and former US vice-president and 7-handicapper Dan Quayle, formerly the dumbest Republican until Dubya merrily lifted that mantle from his shoulders, is 61. Don't miss our legendary accounting of Quayle's notorious round at Cypress Point ...

And it's also birthdays for the splatter director George A. Romero (68) of the Dead series of zombie films; to the gravelly voiced Yorkshireman Tim Booth (48), best known as the frontman of the Madchester popsters James; and to red-hot Aussie singer Natalie Imbruglia (32) of Torn fame, who unjustly was unjustly was named the 6th-most naturally beautiful woman of all time in some silly poll in 2004 (she's hotter than that). And fellas, Natalie, the former wife of Silverchair frontman Daniel Johns is single again ...

And it would have been a birthday for the aviation hero Charles Lindbergh (b. 1902), the first man to pilot a plane non-stop across in the Atlantic Ocean, had he not taken the ultimate solo flight in 1974. ... 'Til tomorrow ...