Golf Central

A great golfer with an even greater story was born in Carmichael, California on this day in 1966. John Daly will go down in history as one of the unlikeliest Major winners in the modern era, having been ninth reserve prior to winning the 1991 PGA Championship. His 1995 victory in The Open Championship of 1995 was similarly unexpected, following a playoff with Italian Constantino Rocca.

He has three other PGA Tour wins to his name, but that's not the half of it. There's the women, the booze, the burgers, the gambling, the fags and all the other stuff that has made Daly the biggest golfing soap opera of the age. He now relies on sponsors exemptions to get him into the starting line-up, having dropped out of golf's top tier.

In the real world, Italian partisans murdered Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci on this day in 1943. The mutilated bodies of were hung upside down outside the forecourt of a Milan garage. On the following day Mussolini was buried in the family tomb in the village of Predappio.

Other golfers born on this day include Hal Sutton (48) and Stephen Ames (44). It's also Sretan Rodendan! as they say in Croatia to this curious trio of ladies - Kim Gordon of US indie noise makers Sonic Youth (55), the compelling Spanish actress Penélope Cruz (34) and golfing Hollywood pin-up Jessica Alba. It would have also been the 71st birthday of former President Of Iraq Saddam Hussein had he not been executed in 2006.