Golf Central

It's Christmas, but in the world of golf December 25 is a bit of a sad day. Because on this day in 1995, the singer/actor and all-round cool little old wine drinker Dean Martin passed away at the age of 78 of lung cancer and emphysema.

Dino was a keen golfer, of course. Like most of the Vegas-based Rat Pack, the handsome crooner loved his golf and once said he would rather be a professional golfer than an entertainer; the pity of it was Martin wasn't a great player. But he supplied once of golf's best quotes ever when he quipped: "If you drink, don't drive. Don't even putt."

And, kindly, Martin lent his name to the PGA Tour's Tucson, Arizona stop for four years. From 1972-75, the tournament with the funny conquistador's helmet as a trophy was known as the Dean Martin Tucson Open and Miller Barber, Bruce Crampton, and Johnny Miller (twice) were the champions.

It's a pity Dino is no longer with us, because he could have spared us the agony of the upcoming 2008 Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, which used to be known as the PGA Tour's Las Vegas stop ...

Spare a thought for South Africa's young star Trevor Immelman, the 2006 PGA Tour rookie of the year, who is having a bit of a uncomfortable Christmas this year. It was last Tuesday that the 28-year-old Immelman, the world's 19th-ranked golfer, had to undergo surgery in Johannesburg to remove a growth on his diaphragm.

Immelman won the Nedbank Golf Challenge in Sun City South Africa earlier in December with some brilliant golf, but had to withdraw just two holes into his first round at the South African Airways Open at Pearl Valley because intense pain in his right ribcage was causing him difficulty breathing.

Immelman is one of the Tour's truly nice young guys, and when he withdrew after trying to fight through the pain, his first thought was to apologise to playing partners David Frost and Darren Clarke. "This was a really difficult decision to make, one that frustrates me greatly, and I am truly sorry to let you guys down," Immelman said.

It's a good thing he did. The source of the pain was found to be a golf-ball sized growth on his diaphragm, not his ribs. After surgery, Immelman will need 4-8 weeks to recover and get back on the course.

Unfortunately, it's not the first strange ailment to bedevil Immelman. Two nights before the 2007 Masters, the South African had stomach cramps, and was found to have a parasite. That ailment caused Immelman to lose 22 pounds and make two trips to hospital.

Great guy, great talent, and unlucky fellow. But what a future Immelman has if he can stay healthy. Get well soon, Trev ...

One of the Christmas pressies your humble IGWT deputy editor got this year was a collection of pithy golf quotations and maxims called The Hole Is More Than The Sum Of The Putts, compiled by Colin Jarman.

A quick flip through these 432 fascinating pages unearthed this gem of a medical opinion:

"Golf increases the blood pressure, ruins the disposition, spoils the digestion, induces neurasthenia, hurts the eyes, calluses the hands, ties kinks in the nervous system, debauches the morals, drives men to drink or homicide, breaks up the family, turns the ductless glands into internal warts, corrodes the pneumogastric nerve, breaks off the edges of the vertebrae, induces spinal meningitis and progressive medacity, and starts angina pectoris."

Crikey! We think:
a) Doctors like golf too much, generally. Try visiting your NHS GP on a nice sunny afternoon ...
b) Wonder what Doctor Lamb would make of Trevor Immelman's current condition. And it seems what Trevor needs most is more golf, and fewer growths on his diaphragm and intestinal parasites!

On this day in 1861, in Hoylake, Merseyside, a future golf champion who would dominate British amateur golf the way Bobby Jones did in America was born.

John Ball Jr. was a bit of a latecomer to golf but after winning the British Amateur title in 1888, he became first Englishman to win The Open Championship, in 1890, after a succession of 14 Scotsmen, mostly from St Andrews and Musselburgh, had combined to win the 29 previous Opens.

The same year, Ball also captured the British Amateur title, and was the only man to hold both titles concurrently until Jones won the Grand Slam in 1930.

After that, the "Ball was Rolling", as the red-top Sun might have headlined had it been around in those days ...

On this day in 1927, a pair of 15-year-olds, Byron Nelson and Ben Hogan, squared off in a playoff for the Glen Garden Country Club caddie championship in Fort Worth, Texas in a battle which may have looked at the time your bog-standard junior golf shootout.

Byron Nelson won the battle that day, beating Hogan by a stroke. But at the end of the day, who can say who the ultimate winner was?

The Second World War intervened and injuries put the cosh on the nine-major-champion juggernaut that was Hogan by 1953. Hogan was always the better story, always the more compelling figure. And while Nelson got only five majors in a shortened career, his records of 18 wins total and 11 consecutive in '45 will probably never be equalled. And Nelson has an award in his name - the PGA Tour's lowest scoring player each year since 1980 receives the Bryon Nelson Award.

All said, Hogan will probably always recognised as the greater of the two golfers ... but fairness is fairness, and on this day in '27, Nelson was better. ...