Golf Central

On this day in 1956, Costantino Rocca was born in Bergamo, Italy, and would go on to be an unlikely and beloved hero at the Open Championship and Ryder Cups - and the most successful Italian golfer of all time.

Like so many golf stars from humble beginnings, Rocca started as a caddie and had to return to European Tour Qualifying School several times. But eventually, the Italian with the broad smile and hunched shoulders started making it: He ended up winning five times on the tour, including the 1996 Volvo PGA Championship. Now 51, Rocca has already won twice on the senior circuit.

But Rocca is best known, of course, for one of the greatest moments in Open Championship history: The miraculous putt he made at St Andrews and the fairytale finish that nearly came of it ...

In the 1995 Open, Rocca chunked a horrible chip on the final hole, trailing the leader John Daly by a stroke. Incredibly, Rocca turned the tables, rolling in a snaking 65-foot putt from out of the Valley of Sin for birdie to tie Daly and take the Open to a four-hole playoff, falling to his knees in tears.

That Rocca ended up beaten by Daly, 15 strokes to 19, in the playoff, is now practically forgotten; it's almost as if the Italian had won after all.

Rocca also is the only Italian to have played in the Ryder Cup - he was on the 1993, 1995 and 1997 European teams and had a 6-5-0. Most importantly, his only singles win came when he beat Tiger Woods 4&2 in the '97 Ryder Cup at Valderrama, a match in which Europe desperately needed Rocca's win to claim the Cup. ...

It's a Tuesday, so you probably have a pub quiz on tonight, so we'll do our weekly best to arm you with some completely useless knowledge: It was on this day in 771 that the Austrasian king Carloman died, leaving his brother Charlemagne to take control of the new Frankish Kingdom. We didn't even know there was an Austrasian, but now we do ... and so do you!

You can also tell your quiz controller that on this day in 1969, San Diego surfer Greg Noll, pioneer of big-wave surfing, rode a 65-foot wave off Oahu's North Shore, which is still believed to be a record for the highest wave ever surfed ...

So it's hau`oli la hanau!, as they say in Waimea Bay, to all 5-foot, 1-inch of comic genius Ronnie Corbett, who is 77 today; to actor Jeff Bridges (58), The Dude from The Big Lebowski; and Pamela Stephenson Connelly (58), the Kiwi-born comic of Not The Nine O'Clock News fame.

It's also musical birthday choruses to country-rock paragon Chris Hillman (65) of the Byrds; mandolin picker Terry Woods of the Pogues (60); Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington (56); and rapper Jay-Z (38). It's also golfing b-days to five-time PGA Tour winner Tom Purtzer (56); and two-time winner Gabriel Hjertstedt (36) of Sweden.

It also would have been the 63rd birthday of drummer Dennis Wilson, who was the only member of the Beach Boys who was an actual surfer, had he not drowned in an alcohol-related incident in Marina Del Rey, California in 1983.