Golf Central

On this day in 1966, Jack Nicklaus made it a very special double at Augusta, winning his second straight Masters title - and doing it, thanks to a leap year, on the same calendar day - by squeezing past Gay Brewer and Tommy Jacobs in a playoff. In doing so, the Golden Bear became the first golfer to successfully defend his title around Amen Corner ...

The previous year, it was easier for Jack. He fired a tournament-record 271 to smoke fellow legends Arnold Palmer and Gary Player by nine shots. It's been an historic day in Masters history for other reasons as well. In 1996, Greg Norman carded a course-record 63 at Augusta in the first round (only to lose in the most painful fashion to Nick Faldo after a closing 78. And in 2002, Tiger Woods, opened the Masters by posting yet another (yawn) first-roung 70. He won anyway.

April 11th is of course rich with men claiming Green Jackets on this day, including José Maria Olazabal, who won his second Green Jacket today in 1999 by two shots over Davis Love III - despite the fact he had recovered from debilitating foot pain since his first title. Other fellows slipping on Green Jackets today were one-time Claude Harmon (1948); Charles Coody (1971); Raymond Floyd (1976); Craig "The Walrus" Stadler (1982), Seve Ballesteros (1983, second title); and Bernhard Langer (1993).

There's a real world outside of Augusta, Georgia - and in it, on this day in 1981 the streets of Brixton were aflame as a result of massive rioting in the wake of the arrest of a black man ... and in 1814, Les Bleus emperor Napoleon Bonaparte had to chuck in his throne, abdicating and hustling off to exile in the island of Elba ...

And strangely enough, on this day in 1895 the town of Anaheim, California, successfully tested its newly completed electric lights. Pity they still don't work properly ... and in 1985, scientists in Hawaii calculated the distance between Earth and the moon to within one inch. (Why scientists have to work in Hawaii is beyond us ... oh yeah, the weather) ...

So it's Roland Thatcher! as they exclaimed with joy in Hampton, Virginia in 1977 to the Nationwide-turned-PGA Tour player; to Radio 2 host Whispering Bob Harris (62); to World Cup-winning Italian footie gaffer Marcello Lippi (60); to anti-American overgrown gear-head idiot Jeremy Clarkson (48); Welsh babe singer Cerys Matthews (39); and to the Dover lass with the lovely lungs, Joss Stone (21) ... 'Til tomorrow!