Golf Central

From Marilyn Monroe to Joanne Carner via Tony Blair, with much else besides, this was an interesting day. The prime minister, for example, had a filled condom delivered directly ton him in the House of Commons, and it’s not often we get the chance to write a sentence like that.

It’s time to celebrate the little guy in golf, of whom there are thousands, by marking the birth of Michael Dean (Mike) Standly, on this day in 1964. Having progressed through the usual route (pronounced ‘rout’) of college golf and becoming All-American (whatever the hell that is) in his senior year, he turned pro in 1986 and joined the full US Tour in 1990. In his career since then he has managed 12 top-10 finishes but he obviously had an affinity for the Freeport-McMoRan Golf Classic. In 1992 he was tied 2nd, in 1995 he was tied 5th but in-between, in 1993, he won the damned thing – his only US Tour victory. Since 1999 he has played on the Nationwide Tour, with a best finish of tied-3rd at the 2003 Alberta Calgary Classic. Nevertheless, Mike, and struggling journeymen pros everywhere, we salute you.

Oddly, this is the date on which Marilyn Monroe famously and breathily sang ‘Happy Birthday, Mister President’ to JFK in 1962, and the day on which Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis died, in 1994, although the two events are not thought to be related, except in our diseased and tortured minds.

On this day in 1974 Joanne Carner, aka ‘Big Momma’ won the LPGA Bluegrass Invitational, one of her 43 LPGA Tour victories. She had an outstanding amateur career and at the age of 30 she turned pro and just kept on winning. More remarkable, perhaps, was her longevity; at the age of 64 she made the cut the 2004 LPGA Chik-fil-A Charity Championship. The reason we particularly like her is her wit. She once said, of a crucial putt that failed to drop: ‘I don’t know why that putt hung on the edge. I’m a clean liver. It must be my caddy.’

In 2004, while speaking in the House of Commons, prime minister Tony Blair was hit with a condom full of purple flour thrown from the public gallery. It prompted an urgent review of security, with people pointing out that it could have been a deadly weapon.
If only.

The Flemish Dutch say: ‘Gelukkige verjaardag! or Prettige verjaardag! Yet we have the much more restrained ‘Happy Birthday’ to offer to:-
Victoria Wood (55), officially the Greatest Living Englishwoman.
Pete Townshend (63) who has failed to achieve his ambition of dying before he got old.
Lily Cole (20), one of those leggy actress/model types that crop up from time-to-time.