Golf Central

On this day in 1990, the US Vice President Dan Quayle stuck his foot in it again by ... playing a round of golf at the Cypress Point Club in Pebble Beach, California.

If Quayle's common sense had ever been as good as his golf game, the former veep might have avoided so many potshots during his time as the No. 2 to President George H.W. Bush from '89-93. And Quayle is still quite handy with the sticks - he was captain of the golf team at DePauw University in Indiana and plays off a very tidy index of 5.

But Quayle was an easy target, for his frequent verbal stumbles ("It's time for the human race to enter the solar system"), bumbles (misspelling "potato" as "potatoe" at an elementary school spelling bee) and fumbles in debates ("Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy"). Naturally, everyone thought Dan Quayle was thicker than a bag of ball-peen hammers.

Still, what was the big stink about the vice president playing golf? After all, Clinton teed it up every week, didn't he? ... and even Quayle's wife Marilyn once admitted: "Dan would rather play golf than have sex any day." ...

Well, it was pointed out to Quayle by California's "liberal" media that it was politically insensitive for the VP to play golf at Cypress Point, the "stinking rich" 250 members of which would not permit women or minorities to join the club. In the days when ripping Quayle was so much fun, the press had a field day.

(Cypress Point, by the way, stuck to its guns. The club, once one of three Pebble Beach courses to host the PGA Tour's AT&T Pro-Am, refused to change its rules and was replaced on the rota by Poppy Hills in 1991).

To his credit, Quayle cancelled his second round at Cypress Point, which was meant to be the next day. His office said the vice president was "unwilling to leave an impression that he condones any form of discrimination." Fair play.

But what did Quayle do next? The vice president jumped on Air Force Two and went straight to the resort of Vail, Colorado for a ski-ing vacation. ... Uh, Dan, no rich white guys there, either, huh?

Sigh ... Still, Quayle stands as almost a fond reminder of a time when he was the highest-ranking stupid Republican in America ... and you gotta admire that handicap.

But we digress. ... And speaking of geeks, it was also on this day in 1977 that Star Wars fever gripped Britain, as the much-awaited George Lucas blockbuster was finally released in London after being out for 7 months in the US. Shivering idiots stood in ice-cold weather outside the Dominion and Leicester Square cinemas from 7am to try to snap up the £2.20 tickets, which touts were offering for 30 quid (that's £102 in today's money!) ... These same morons, 30 years older, are now seen dressed as stormtroopers and brandishing plastic lightsabres at sci-fi conventions when they're not your next-door neighbours. Chilling thought ...

And on this day in 1831, nature boy Charles Darwin took his first step to bothering the God botherers when he boarded HMS Beagle, which set off on its historic fact-finding voyage in the Pacific Ocean. Darwin's five-year journey, of course, would evolve into ... uh, some theory that God botherers don't like.

So, it's feliz cumpleaños, as they say in the Galapagos Islands (actually, they don't say that, because giant tortoises can't talk, we think ...), to some pretty good golfers: All-Boring Name Hall of Famer Steve Jones, winner of the '96 US Open and eight PGA Tour events, is nearly Champions Tour-ready at 49; Sherri Steinhauer, who won back-to-back Women's British Opens in '98-99 is 45; and Swedish two-time LPGA winner Sophie Gustafson is 34.

It's also happy b-day to Elvis' guitar-picker Scotty Moore (76); Foreigner axeman Mick Jones (63, not to be confused with the Mick Jones in the good band, the Clash); French actor Gerard Depardieu (59); former Bond girl Maryam d'Abo (47); buck-toothed London-born journo Janet Street-Porter (61); and "cool geek" actor Masi Oka (33) of Heroes.

And in sports, retired Everton and Scotland hitman Duncan Ferguson is 36; and Colin Charvis, the Wales and Dragons back-row marauder is 35.

It also would have been a birthday for the French biochemist Louis Pasteur had he not been born so long ago (1822) and drank some bad milk in 1895 (actually, that's a lie, Pasteur never would have drank bad milk ... he died of a stroke, but we bet you believed us, because In Golf We Trust!).