Golf Central

It was all change for professional ladies golf on this day in 1949, as the Women’s Golf Association changed its name what we now know as the Ladies Professional Golf Association (that'll be LPGA if you couldn’t figure it out). Patty Berg was elected as LPGA president, whilst legends Babe Zaharias, Betty Jameson and others also jumped on board. 29 years later to the day on the LPGA tour, Nancy Lopez reigned as queen of the fairways, clinching her third tournament victory on the trot at the Golden Lights Championship in 1978.

Nearly eight months after his momentous U.S. Open triumph at The Country Club, Francis Ouimet captures the French Amateur title at La Boulie on this day in 1914, although nobody makes such a big deal about this one. Apart from us.

 

You can learn a lot from golf in a week. Seven things, in fact, involving the unlucky Oliver Wilson, the joy of being a hat-trick hero, Phil Mickelson's wealth and the simple fact that the older you get the harder the game becomes.

 

You wouldn’t think it possible to make a connection between Sam Snead, Cilla Black, Wild Bill Hickok, Oscar Wilde and the sinking of the Bismarck – but we’ve surprised even ourselves and managed it.
Snead was mentioned only a few days ago, but he was such a great, and quotable, player that he deserves another outing on this, the anniversary of his birth in 1912. And for the record, we once played golf with a journalist lucky to have played with Sam and he asked the great man: ‘When you were on the 18th and absolutely had to nail a drive, what did you think about?’
Sam replied: ‘Pussy’.

John Wayne was born on this day in history and has some strange bedfellows. A volcanic tempered golfer, oleaginous sports presenter and rather attractive actress were also dragged kicking and screaming into the world – but in different years, of course. At the other end of the scale, a man who is immortalised by uncontrollable swearing popped his clogs