Golf Central

On this day in 1962, a 22-year-old called “Fat Jack” – with a squeaky Midwestern accent and a blonde crew cut – used a massive power fade and red-hot putter to win the World Series of Golf at Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio.

Jack Nicklaus went on to win the Firestone event four more times, but only once after it became an official PGA Tour event in 1976. Now one of the marquee events on the Tour and known as the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, it has been won six times by Tiger Woods (including the last three) as Tiger continues his relentless hunt for all of the Golden Bear’s records.
   
In the non-Jack Nicklaus victory department, on this day in 1990, Sam Torrance captured the Linde German Masters in a 3-shot triumph over Bernhard Langer and Ian Woosnam.

There was big-time drama as well on this day in 1985 when Palestinian nutjobs hijacked the cruiser liner Achille Lauro and her 400 passengers in the Med. Likewise, in 1959, 300 people couldn’t get off the pleasure pier at Southend because it was on fire, and were rescued from the end in a mini Dunkirk evacuation.

So it’s Grattis pŒ fšdelsedagen! as they say in Stockholm to Danish Euro tour player Steen Tinning (b.1962) and 1993 Ryder Cup star, England’s Peter Baker (b.1967), gold-medal ice dancing goddess Jayne Torvill (b.1957), annoyingly talentless and omnipresent TV superstar Simon Cowell (b.1959) and Radiohead warbler Thom Yorke (b.1968).