Etc.

It just happened to be my day

"You wait all your life" for one, Phil Walker told reporters, "then two come along at once." Sounds like a man who just scored a couple of holes-in-one in golf, doesn't it? Yes, and that's exactly what happened one day last week at Mollington Green Golf Club just outside Chester, England. Walker, a professional pharmacist but a rank amateur on the links, was participating in a special tournament to raise money for Children in Need, an annual charity sponsored by the BBC. Special ... because he limited himself to just three clubs, a putter and two irons. On the 153-yard par-3 sixth hole, he needed only one of the irons. His tee shot soared true and disappeared into the cup, eliciting the customary congratulations from his playing partners. It's not recorded whether any of them said, "OK, let's see you do it again." But on the 151-yard 17th, also a par-3, he did. This, despite the fact that it is considered Mollington's "signature" hole because the green is on an island surrounded by one of the five ponds on the course. That placement limits golfers to two strategies: reach the green on the fly or hit short of the pond and then try to put a chip shot as close as possible to the pin. "Usually," Walker said, "I end up in the water on the 17th. So just to hit the green would have done me." As for the partners, reports say they were "gobsmacked" – a British term meaning to be rendered speechless. No word on whether our guy was back out at Mollington the next day.