Golf Central

On this day, and a year apart as fate might have it, the top two young heart-throbs of the modern PGA and LPGA Tours were born - Colombia's Camilo Villegas, and California girl Natalie Gulbis.

Needless to say, the women in the galleries stop and cool themselves off when the Latin god Villegas swaggers by, muscles rippling Springsteen-like in his stylish J. Lindeberg duds ... and by the same token, the fellas sigh when the curvy blonde bombshell Natalie saunters past in a cute little blouse-and-skirt combo (or when she wears even less in her ubiquitous calendars) ...

Wethinks that Camilo may be missing out on a huge marketing coup by not putting out a beefcake calendar of himself (perhaps he's afraid of the sniggers he'd hear in PGA Tour clubhouses if he did), but our darling Natalie has no such compunction. Although she's no longer doing the bikini pics we've all come to love (sigh), you can get Nats' 2008 calendar right here.

We also think both are bound to become big winners, because in addition to being very easy on the eyes, they're also on the cusp of becoming very good tour players. Both Villegas and Gulbis won their first professional tournaments in 2007 ...

Villegas (pronounced bee-JAY-gus, regardless of how Nick Faldo says it) was born on this day in 1982, was brought up in Medellín, Colombia and is the greatest golfer to ever come out of the South American country best known for its cocaine barons. We expect him to do better this year than his career-best in a major of T23 in last year's USPGA.

He launched his career out of the University of Florida and got his PGA Tour card in the 2005 Q-School, and after his maiden pro victory at the Coca-Cola Tokai Classic on the Japan Tour in Septemeber, Villegas has climbed to No. 58 in the Official World Golf Rankings. Massively strong off the tee and a bit of an oddball - Camilo has earned the nickname Spiderman (Hombre Araña) for his unique belly-to-the-ground routine on reading putts.

Words of advice for any women wanting a piece of Camilo from the man himself: "It doesn't matter how good she looks. A woman has to be fun." ...

As for Natalie, what can we say ... the gorgeous blonde is of Latvian descent (her surname means 'Swan' in Latvian and we really want to go to Latvia now) was born on this day in Sacramento in 1983, started playing golf at age four, and won a junior tournament as a 7-year-old girl.

How she has grown up. We love Natalie around IGWT HQ for a number of reasons (not only because she nearly single-handedly trebled our page impressions in October), but also for "presenting" our end-of-the-year Rusty Awards and smelling so nice when she makes the tea.

But serious, Nats also has solid game and she proved she's not just a pretty face by breaking through on the LPGA Tour at last year's Evian Masters, beating Jeong Jang in a playoff to take the winner's share in the $3 million event. Now that the wins have started, the bikinis are gone, but we still predict mega-stardom for Natalie, especially when that first major comes.

Words of advice for the guys sighing over Natalie? Well, in an interview with Golf.com in October she was asked if any ordinary Joe would have a chance with her. Nats' reply: "Absolutely. I'm pretty open-minded with who I date." ... Now if that's not good news, we don't know what is ...

Now, when you think about how much Camilo and Natalie have in common (good looks, one victory, same birthdate), you'd think they'd be a match made in heaven, wouldn't you? After all, it worked out for Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf ...

Well, think again. Because it was on this day in 2005 that Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, considered to be one of Hollywood's most successful marriages, shocked everyone by separating (and later divorcing) after four years being hitched ...

And sometimes it pays not to have too much in common, as identical twins Ronald and Reginald Kray found out when they were banged up on this day in 1965 for running a protection scheme ...

Mind you, it does pay to be popular. For on this day in 1789, the first US presidential election was held, and the fledgling American public voted for electors who chose a reluctant General George Washington to be the first president of the republic.

That said, it's daudz laimes dzimsanas diena!, as they say in Vilnius, to hit-and-miss US actor Nicolas Cage (44), who once asked out an ex-girlfriend of one of your IGWT editors for a date, and got shot down (hah!); and to soft rocker Kenny Loggins (60), who had the hit duet Whenever I Call You Friend with Stevie Nicks.

And in the bi-polar world of baseball, it's birthdays for steroid-popping relief pitcher Éric Gagné (32) of the evil Los Angeles Dodgers and Boston Red Sox; and genius relief pitcher Francisco (K-Rod) Rodriguez (26) of the Los Angeles Angels, a team which of course would never have any known cheaters on the books.

It also would have been a birthday for Greek tycoon Aristotle Onassis (b. 1906), who made heaps of dough in the shipping business and married the widow of John F. Kennedy, but found out you can't take it with you in 1975.