Golf Central

On this day in 1927, a pair of 15-year-olds, Byron Nelson and Ben Hogan, squared off in a playoff for the Glen Garden Country Club caddie championship in Fort Worth, Texas in a battle which may have looked at the time your bog-standard junior golf shootout.

Byron Nelson won the battle that day, beating Hogan by a stroke. But at the end of the day, who can say who the ultimate winner was?

The Second World War intervened and injuries put the cosh on the nine-major-champion juggernaut that was Hogan by 1953. Hogan was always the better story, always the more compelling figure. And while Nelson got only five majors in a shortened career, his records of 18 wins total and 11 consecutive in '45 will probably never be equalled. And Nelson has an award in his name - the PGA Tour's lowest scoring player each year since 1980 receives the Bryon Nelson Award.

All said, Hogan will probably always recognised as the greater of the two golfers ... but fairness is fairness, and on this day in '27, Nelson was better. ...

It was also on this day in 1908 that the 10-time PGA Tour winner Ky Laffoon, one of the most colourful of the pros of the '30s and '40s, was born in Zinc, Arkansas. Laffoon was great from tee-to-green, was great for a laugh (especially telling tall tales about his alleged Native American heritage), and is legendary for tying his clubs (particularly his putter) to the bumper of his car as the pros motored between tour stops. The club abuse was for punishment ... (don't you wish we could still get away with that today?). ...

December 23 is also the birthday of the late Dave Marr (b. 1933), former Tour pro and winner of the 1965 PGA Championship, who was Arnold Palmer's best buddy and a popular figure on ABC Sports' golf broadcasts before his death to cancer in 1997...

And just so you have your seasons straight, today is the first day of winter in the Northern Hemisphere, and the last day of spring in the Southern Hemisphere...

And here's a news item that struck our fancy. Ah ha! Because it was on this day, in 1992, that the BBC was forced to investigate a leak which led to the Queen's oh-so-special Christmas speech being published. Like we cared ...

And it was on this day in 1986, that the experimental plane the Voyager, with pilots Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager at the controls, finished the first non-stop, round-the-world flight without refueling, touching down safely at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

So it's masadya gid nga adlaw sa imo pagkatawo!, as they say in Hiligaynon in the Philippines, to a host of dishy brunettes: the Texas actress Joan Severance, who looked great in and out of clothes in Playboy, is 49; the supermodel and singer-songwriter Carla Bruni, former squeeze of Eric Clapton, Mick Jagger, Donald Trump, Kevin Costner and current squeeze of French president Nicholas Sarkozy, is 40; and posh, coke-snorting, musician-shagging slapper Tara Palmer-Tomkinson is 36.

It's also musical b-days to Adrian Belew (58), guitarist of prog-rockers King Crimson; to metal axeman and keen golfer Dave Murray (51) of Iron Maiden; and Pearl Jam screamer Eddie Vedder (43).

It's also the 30th birthday of American NFL football player Alge Crumpler of the Atlanta Falcons, who would have a great name for a diving striker if he played the beautiful game instead.