Golf Central

On this day in 1987, the Merry Mex, Lee Trevino hit a 6-iron as purely as you can hit it, knocking a hole-in-one on the 167-yard 17th hole at the PGA West Stadium Course to win $175,000 en route to victory in the Skins Game.

Playing parner Jack Nicklaus told the Associated Press that there was a moment of stunned silence on the tee after Trevino's shot trickled into the cup. "''I think that's the first time in my life I've heard him shut up,'' Nicklaus said of the garrulous Trevino. ''He was speechless. For once, he was at a loss for words.''

''It looked like a Rembrandt,'' recalled Trevino, obviously confused by the similarities between a golf shot and a painting by a Dutch Master.

It remains the only hole-in-one in Skins Game history ...

Also on this day, in 1970, the under-rated Bob Goalby fired 4-under-par to beat Lanny Wadkins by four shots, winning the Heritage Classic at Harbour Town in Hilton Head, S.C.

November 29th has traditionally been a bad day to be a celebrity and you don't want to die. In 1981, actress Natalie Wood started the trend by drowning at age 43 near her yacht anchored at Catalina Island off the Southern California coast. Legendary actor Gary Grant carried it on in 1986 with a death from a stroke in Iowa at age 82; Beatles guitarist George Harrison completed the trifecta in 2001 by kicking it from cancer aged 58. But don't worry you celebs, these things always happen in threes ...

Computer geeks have typically had a field day on November 29, as in 1972 inventor Nolan Bushnell released the first commercially successful video game - Pong - in Andy Capp's Tavern in Sunnyvale, California. Three years later, Bill Gates fired off a letter to his mate Paul Allen, informing him that he wanted to name their new company "Micro-soft". ...

It has been a good day for football as well. On this day in 1899, the Spanish football giants FC Barcelona were founded. And on this day in 1973, in Cardiff, Wales, a magical winger named Ryan Giggs was born, and all No. 11 has done since then is score 142 goals in 734 games for Manchester United, and 13 more for the Welsh national side.

So it's Penblwydd Hapus i Chi!, as they say in the valleys of Wales, to the former president of France, Jacques Chirac (75); and burly actor Tom Sizemore (46), who played the tough tobacco-chewing sergeant in the film Saving Private Ryan.

It also would have been the birthday for Irish fantasy novelist C.S. Lewis, had he not waltzed off to Narnia or wherever in 1963.