Golf Central

Today’s the day in 1958 that a young South African prospect named Gary Player recorded his first win on The PGA tour claiming the Kentucky Derby Open at the Seneca Golf Course in Louisville. The Black Knight would go onto claim 24 tour victories in the US, including nine Major victories. Player also enjoyed success on this day in 1969 to claim the Tournament of Champions title from Lee Trevino.

This day in 1851 also saw another momentous event in golf, with the birth of ‘Young’ Tom Morris. One of the pioneers of professional golf, St. Andrews-born Morris won The Open Championship four times. His third victory saw him given the championship belt to keep, leading to the purchase of the claret jug to be presented to the next winner.

Elsewhere, on this day in 1968, Enoch Powell made his controversial ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech about immigration. Today in 1974 saw the 1000th victim of ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, after a petrol station owner was found shot dead on a roadside in County Fermanagh. Planet earth had a lucky escape in 1989, after narrowly avoiding being hit by a passing asteroid weighing 400 million tonnes, while in 1999, the Columbine Massacre occurred when two teenage students rampaged through a school in Denver, Colorado killing fifteen.

Meanwhile, it's manuia lou aso fanau! as they say in Samoa to English novelist Sebastian Faulks (55), glamour model and part time actress Carmen Electra (36) and Dutch darts start Raymond van Barneveld (41). It would also have been the 119th birthday of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler had he not taken his own life in 1945.