Golf Central

A golfing great was born to Holmes Chapel in Cheshire on this day in 1907. Three-time winner of The Open Championship (1934, '37 and '48), Henry Cotton was a single-minded grafter on the golf course and a dashing character off it. He was driven around in a Rolls Royce, drank fine champagne and wore immaculate suits.

He also served in the Air Force during World War II, won an MBE for his help in the war effort and was knighted just before his death in 1987.

Other momentous events in golf include a report published on this day in 1926 stating that 180 million golf tees were sold the previous year, signaling the beginning of the end of the use of sand to tee the ball up.

Meanwhile, in the real world, India became an independent republic on this day in 1950, while in 1998, Bill Clinton uttered those immortal words: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman”, referring, of course, to Monika Lewinsky.

It’s mi fresteri ju! As they say in Surinam to blue-eyed Hollywood icon and pasta sauce magnate Paul Newman (83!!!), comedian and US talkshow host Ellen DeGeneres (50) and a strange assortment of musicians and musical performers including Jean ‘Mr Big Stuff’ Knight (65), Eddie Van Halen (53), Jazzie B and Andrew Ridegely (45) – and that’s before we get to some bloke from Hoobastank we’ve never heard of…

It’s also worth noting that Nicolae Ceausescu, 7th President of Romania, would have been 90 today had he not been executed by firing squad following the revolution of 1989.