Golf Central

On this day in 1916, Francis Ouimet decided to open a sporting goods store in Boston, Massachusetts, despite knowing the possible consequences. A working-class lad, Ouimet had vaulted himself into public consciousness three years earlier by winning the US Open as a teenaged amateur against the world's best professional golfers.

But by 1916, Ouimet had a hard decision to make and a stand to take: If he opened a trading sport shop, he would be considered a "professional"; if he didn't, he could keep his amateur status. But he needed money. He wanted to go into business. So he took on the great big evil US Golf Association, and he won. Here's how: ...

For one, the American golfing public weren't so stupid to realise that Ouimet's outside professional venture had anything to do with his success on the golf course. Ouimet had been sponsored by Wright & Ditson Sports Goods store in 1913 just to get his entry fee for his historic 1913 victory, but that was only a loan. Ouimet was certainly not expected to win.

But in 1916, Ouimet, with a couple of friends as co-investors, went ahead and opened the sporting goods store anyway. He was selling fishing lures, soccer balls, basketballs, baseballs, and a few golf products. And the USGA lashed straight out, banishing the jug-eared hero from amateur competition for "cashing in" on his celebrity status as a US Open champion - despite the fact that Ouimet had spurned all opportunities to play for cash in exhibtions or lend his name to the endorsement of products.

In this day and age, when Tiger Woods had $25 million in endorsements lined up in the bank on the day that he announced his professional status (and that was 12 years ago!), Ouimet's dilemma must have been unthinkable.

World War One helped. Ouimet, as a member of the US Army in 1917, gave free golf lessons to the troops, and public sentiment held sway. And the big, bad USGA backed down, restoring Ouimet's amateur status, his dignity and his rightful place in golf's broad history. But if he hadn't had the courage to stand up to the USGA, who know's what kind of golfing society we would have today ...

OK, you need help on your Tuesday pub quiz, because, quite honestly, we are flooded with requests with kernels of useless BS to take with you whilst you ponder your pint of Guinness. Never fear, IGWT are here, to help you with all sorts of weird facts and fallacies:

• For it was on this day in 1559, that Queen Elizabeth I of England had her coronation in Westminster Abbey, and there she was crowned not by the Archbishop of Canterbury. No, Queen Liz I was crowned by the Bishop of Carlisle, Owen Oglethorpe, presumably because he had a cool geeky name ...
• And it was on this day in 1759 that the British Museum opened, thanks to the huge collections of the scientist/physician (read: rich guy) Sir Hans Sloane, on its current site in Montagu House in Bloomsbury, London (nobody knows what happened to the lost "e" in Montague). By the same token, the Greeks are still wondering what the hell happened to the Elgin Marbles, which used to be in the Acropolis in Athens for thousands of years, before they disappeared somewhere near what is now known as Holborn Tube in 1803, only to be on permanent display in the British Museum's first-floor showcase to this day ... Hmmmn.
• And on this day in 1967, the Green Bay Packers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs 35-10 in the very first Super Bowl of American football. ... Now, that's a long, long time ago, and nobody really cares anymore. But now you know who won. And if your quizmaster gives you any grief, tell him that nobody cares except for "Cheeseheads". (Cheeseheads are people from Wisconsin, where Green Bay is). If you want to be really cocky, ask your quizmaster "Which Cheesehead is No. 3 in the world in golf right now?" ... and if he answers Steve Stricker, buy him a pint. ...

So, it's happy birthday, buddy, double cheese, as they say in Milwaukee, to creepily sexy and strangely unsuccessful French tennis starlet Mary Pierce (33). And also to a number of people whom you should only be familiar with if you have obsessions of one kind or another: including Liverpool winger (when he's not in the nick) Jermaine Pennant (25); the spitting El Hadji Diouf (27), striker for Bolton and Senegal; and Sean "The Schlong" Lamont (27), the underachieving Scottish rugby union winger. And if you know more than us about the American porn actress Kobe Tai (36), more power to you ...

It also would have been a birthday for American civil rights champion Martin Luther King, Jr (b. 1929), who became one of the greatest orators in US history with his speech "I Have A Dream" and the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize winner, had he not been gunned down in pursuit of that dream on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee.

As we say around IGWT, legends live on MLK ... 'til tomorrow ...