Golf Central

On this day in 1969, a nearly silent South African who would quietly slip in (twice!) and nab America's most precious golf treasure was born in Pietersburg (now Polokwane) in Limpopo province ... Retief Goosen.

When Goosen's countrymen Bobby Locke and Gary Player arrived on US shores, there was plenty of fanfare. Same with Nick Price, who had a proven track record before he started winning major championships. But in the early days of his pro career, Goosen was the shy guy who stood on the sidelines and let his golf clubs do the talking. Retief's mother said her son's retiring side was due to having been struck twice by lightning as a youngster. But that all changed when Retief's clubs when he won the US Open Championships in 2001 and 2004 ninja-style ...

For the record Goosen owns 14 European Tour wins, six PGA Tour wins, and the respect of almost all of his peers, media and galleries. Had not Nick Price, Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu come along sooner, Retief might be vying for the title of most likeable South African ever.

But beneath the placid exterior, there's a burning desire to win and without that, you do not win a US Open - the most demanding test of golf on the planet. Goosen struck first on the sunbaked plains of Southern Hills in Oklahoma in 2001, beating Mark Brooks by two in an 18-hole playoff. Lightning struck twice (again) when Retief nabbed his second US Open, three years later at Shinnecock Hills, taking only 24 putts in the final round in an all-time display with the flatstick to take down Phil Mickelson by two shots.

Nice guy, great player, and a guy anyone would be happy to play 18 holes with unless there was a title or money on the line. And he's got loads of IGWT karma on his side. Happy 39th, Retief ...

Goosen aside, February 3rd has also gotten a bad rap for the last nearly 50 years ago, thanks to a hit tune called American Pie released by Don McLean in 1972. Because it was on this day in 1959 that a light aircraft crashed on takeoff in a snowstorm in Iowa, carrying to their deaths three of America's finest young musicians who were on tour together: killed were Buddy Holly (age 22), Ritchie Valens (17) and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson.

A tragic day, indeed ... However, there are those who were born on Feb. 3 who would take issue with McLean's blanket judgement that Feb. 3 is "the day the music died," especially those of us who write songs whenever the muse strikes us. On the other hand, it's hard to argue with Big Don when you go down the pub these days and you hear the remix of Cascada's Everytime We Touch on full blast, and the only relief imaginable in a bullet to the head. So, perhaps Don McLean was partly right ...

On a completely different note ... it was on this day in 1690 that the first paper money in America was issued. The colony of Massachusetts, which later became the great state of Massachusetts and gave America various heroes like John F. Kennedy and Joe Pernice, but also scourges like the Boston Red Sox, issued the currency in order to pay the militiamen who were away fighting a war in Quebec. Strangely enough, American paper money is still hardly worth the price of toilet roll in the UK, Boston Tea Party or not ...

That said, it's hoke she la cha! (it's a boy!), as they say in the Lakota Sioux language, to the multi-facted Irish performer Val Doonican (81), whose name alone is enough to make one fancy a pint of Guinness; to the US film director Michael Cimino (69), who like many born on Feb. 3 often claims to be "misunderstood" after helming hit-or-miss flicks like The Deer Hunter, Heaven's Gate, and Footloose; to Dave Davies (61), the lead guitarist who gave the Kinks a bit of their fire; and to the super-campy stage and film actor Nathan Lane (52) of The Producers.

It also would have been a birthday for the legendary US artist and illustrator Norman Rockwell (b. 1894), whose visions of "Americana" in the Saturday Evening Post presented an often presented a too-rosy picture, but who was brilliant anyway ... had he not chucked in the brush and palette permanently in 1978, mercifully (for him) 12 years before the Bush Administration. Bless ya, Norman, and happy b-day ... 'Til tomorrow ...

(Ed.'s wife's note: It's also the birthday of the Ed. xxx).