Leinster Gardens is a street in Bayswater, London. It is lined with tall, ornate, mid-Victorian terraced houses, many of which are listed buildings, due to their original architectural features such as Corinthian pillars, large front porches, huge front doors, balconies, sash windows, street level ornate iron railings. Two of the more famous houses are numbers 23 & 24, which are not as they appear when walking or driving along the Gardens. Both houses have no rooms, no ‘real’ windows, no letter boxes, no door handles and are only 1.5 metres in depth.
The front of 24 Leinster Gardens.
So why do these houses exist? The reason for this is all to do with the construction of the London Underground Railway way back in the 1860’s.
When the Underground was first built, deep holes were dug throughout London’s streets to accommodate the rail tracks, and these large holes would then be covered over, creating a series of tunnels. The tracks between Paddington and Bayswater cut right through and underneath Leinster Gardens, which meant that he houses at numbers 23 & 24 had to be demolished to enable the steam locomotive which pulled the trains to safely disperse the steam being discharged through the funnel before heading into the constructed tunnel – acrid, choking smoke in such a confined space was dangerous and a health hazard to both the train’s crew and passengers. Building this tunnel left an unsightly huge gap in the middle of Leinster Gardens where numbers 23 & 24 used to be – in what was a very posh and desirable street. Local residents were not at all happy about this as they believed that the unsightly gap lowered the tone, prestige and status of the area. They kicked up such a stink that the Metropolitan Railway Co, who owned the line, had to do something – they realised that the residents were very influential people with many business and political connections.
In 1868 the Metropolitan Railway decided to construct a ‘mock-up’ frontage for numbers 23 & 24, so that it blended in perfectly with all the other houses in the street when viewed from street level. The only giveaway is that all of the windows facing the street are permanently blacked out. The façade is so realistic that even today there are people who live in the who are not even aware that numbers 33 & 24 Leinster Gardens are not ‘real’ houses.
A rear view of 23 & 24 Leinster Gardens, clearly showing the railway lines that caused the construction of the facade. Also visible are the steel girders to stop the ‘real’ houses from subsiding into the tunnel cutting.
All of the local ‘take-away/home delivery’ restaurants in the area have a filter on any calls they may receive ordering food to be delivered to these houses, while unsuspecting taxi drivers have been sent to the houses as a practical joke by local residents. The houses have become a tourist attraction, as well as being used the backdrop for several TV shows, including Sherlock.
London is not the only place to have fake buildings. Other examples include:
Barry O’Beirne looked like a typical suburban resident – his neighbours and co-workers in northern California knew him as a quiet man who always wore a San Francisco Giants baseball cap, did regular workouts at the gym, and caused no trouble to anyone.
That all changed on the morning of the 6th of June 2018, when a team of US Air Force special agents arrived at the door of O’Beirne’s townhouse in Daly City, a suburb south of San Francisco, and arrested him for desertion. That’s because O’Beirne’s real name was William Howard Hughes Jr., and he had disappeared 35 years earlier while he was a captain in the Air Force assigned to Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico.
O’Beirne’s mug shot after being arrested in June 2018, and how he looked 35 years earlier when he was still William Hughes.
Hughes’ vanishing act was almost flawless – his family and fellow airmen were taken completely by surprise and had no idea where he had gone for more than a third of a century. His family feared that he had been abducted, while others suspected he had defected to the Soviet Union. The exact reason Hughes vanished still remains unknown today.
Born in 1950 in Seattle Washington, Hughes enlisted in the Air Force in 1973 , and by the age of 33 he had become a captain at Kirtland AFB. He was assigned to the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center, which tests new weapons and equipment for the service. His specific duties “included classified planning and analysis of the NATO command, control, and communications surveillance systems,” according to the USAF. Hughes lived by himself in a modest home near Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Hughes was sent to the Netherlands on the 18th of July 1983 to work with NATO officers on the operation of Airborne Warning and Control electronic surveillance aircraft. Hughes was due back in Albuquerque on August 1st, but he failed to appear. An investigation showed that he was last seen in the Albuquerque area withdrawing $28,500 from his bank account at 19 different branch locations. His car was later found at Albuquerque International Airport. On the 9th of December 1983, 130 days after Hughes was supposed to arrive back at Albuquerque, the Air Force formally declared him a deserter.
Hughes was not a run-of-the-mill grunt who deserted: he had a Top Secret/Single Scope Background Investigation clearance, with access to U.S. Secret and NATO Secret information.
A 1984 article about Hughes’ disappearance – not surprisingly the story was splashed across all media formats.
One of the first theories to be suggest was that Hughes was a Soviet spy, and had defected. Hughes’ sisters refuted the notion that their brother had defected to the Soviets. Christine Hughes said the disappearance was “totally out of character for the Bill we knew”. Hughes’ family said the captain was “a brilliant, dedicated man who phoned his parents regularly” before he disappeared. A statement written by the family also said that they had planned a family union that fall, and Hughes was fastidious about telling his family his whereabouts.
The US military, police and international agencies tried to find Hughes, but it seemed he had disappeared into thin air, until his dramatic reappearance 35 years later. What eventually led to Hughes being discovered was not espionage or treason, but passport fraud. On the 5th of June 2018, special agents from the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service interviewed a man living in Daly City named Barry O’Beirne during a passport fraud investigation. Hughes confessed to living under an assumed name, which resulted in his arrest the following day.
Hughes said that in 1983 he was depressed about being in the Air Force, so he left, made up his new name and life as O’Beirne, and lived in California ever since, residing in San Diego, El Cajon, Brisbane and other cities before winding up in Daly City. Hughes had worked as an actuary and consultant for the University of California in Oakland, where he represented the UC system in labor negotiations and had a reputation for being cheerful and sociable.
Hughes was taken to nearby Travis Air Force Base. He was found guilty of desertion, sentenced to 45 days in military prison and lost an appeal a month later to overturn his sentence. As of 2023, his current whereabouts are unknown.
Multiple contemporary news reports were used as the basis for this blog post, including:
Guardian, “Missing US air force officer found in California after 35 years”
Office of Special Investigations, “OSI captures Most Wanted AF fugitive”
NPR “After 35 Years, Air Force Deserter Found Living In California Under False Name”
During the 1954 FIM World Motorcycle season, Moto Guzzi technical designer Giulio Carcano decided to replace the existing 500cc single-cylinder engine that Moto Guzzi was using with a new multi-cylinder engine for the 1955 season. An twin was unlikely to produce sufficient power, while the options of a V-4, transverse 3-cylinder air-cooled or water-cooled V-6 were not seriously considered. Instead Carcano produced one of the most complicated motorcycle engines of all time – a transverse, water-cooled V8.
The Moto Guzzi 500cc V8 – a work of art as much as an engine.
The cylinders were set at 90 degrees, and each had a bore and stroke of 44 x 41 mm. Carcano said that the engine would be scarcely more bulky than a twin, and deliver more power. The one-piece crankshaft was machined out of a solid piece of metal, and the connecting rods emploted split big ends and split light alloy roller cages. Two valves per cylinder were seated directly on the engine head. There were eight separate exhaust pipes and eight tiny racing Dell’Orto carburettors. The two overhead camshafts on each bank of cylinders were driven by trains of spur gears. The contact make-and-break mechanism for each bank, used in conjunction with battery and coil ignition were driven from the left-hand ends of the camshafts and the water pump from the right.
Moto Guzzi rider Bill Lomas showing how small and compact the V8 was.
The cylinder liners were screwed into the cylinder head casting and ran in contact with the cooling water. Primary drive to the gearbox with large, exposed dry clutch was by gears. The engine was first tested in April 1954, developing 62bhp at 12,500 rpm, giving a top speed of 280kmh. Unfortunately for Moto Guzzi, the big ends of the engine were a weakness, with multiple retirements caused by their breakage, along with crankshaft failures too – Bill Lomas retired in 4 of the 5 races he started in 1956, while Keith Campbell also retired in 4 of the 5 races he started in 1957. When the V8 did finish, it was beaten by 4-cylinder MVs and Gileras, which were not as complicated as the Moto Guzzi. Moto Guzzi withdrew from racing at the end of the 1957 season, and that marked the end of the racing career of the 500cc V8.
Brian Woolley, “Directory of Classic Racing Motorcycles”, Aston Publications, Bourne End, England 1988. p. 149-150, was used as the main source for this blog post.
Since at least 1981, someone has been publishing every May Day (May 1) cryptic messages in the form of a full-page advertisment in the University of Arizona’s daily newspaper, ‘The DailyWildcat’. No one has figured out why or who’s behind it all. In multiple podcasts, YouTube videos and Reddit threads, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook posts, people around the world are trying to solve what’s become known as the “May Day Mystery.”
Each ad is a seemingly random collage of math equations, scientific diagrams of all disciplines, maps, symbols, art, passages in dozens of languages, references to key figures in history (namely Martin Luther, Calvin, Cromwell, and Gustavus Adolphus), and extremely cryptic passages referring often to “The Loyal Order of Un-reconstructed Freaks,” and “The Hotel California.”
The 2002 version of the full-page advertisement placed in the Daily Wildcat.
As can be seen, the complexity of the advertisement was mind-boggling, encompassing cryptic historical references, symbology, languages and mathematical calculations. Someone is spending a great deal of time and brainpower to create these puzzles. It’s expensive to take out a full-page ad in the Wildcat (approximately $1,000), so the creator(s) must also have some financial resources.
Internet sleuths have discovered that the advertisements are placed by a local Tucson lawyer named Robert Truman Hungerford, but he claims to only represent a larger organisation called “The Orphanage”. Hungerford has stated in interviews that he sympathises with the group’s motivations, but he refuses to confirm his membership in the group or provide information about it. Instead, he says he acts as its legal counsel. The relationship, he says, bars his ability to discuss any aspect of its membership.
Hungerford was an undergraduate at the university in the 1970’s and a University of Arizona law school student in the 1980’s, which is a possible reason why the advertisements appear in the “Daily Wildcat”
Robert Truman Hungerford – does he hold the key to the “May Day Mystery”?
Bryan Hance, 27, a former UA student has probably spent the most time of anyone trying to decipher the mystery, and has created a website called “The May Day Mystery” which has the largest collection of May Day advertisements and other material relating to the mystery.
On the border between Egypt and Sudan, you’ll find Bir Tawil, a small, 2,000 km (795 miles) square patch of land. It is a desolate region, mostly just sand and mountains. With no roads or permanent inhabitants, Bir Tawil is pretty unassuming at first glance, not unlike many other unsettled places in the world.
But Bir Tawil is actually quite unique. Due to a discrepancy over border recognition between Egypt and Sudan, it is one of the few places on Earth left unclaimed by any country or state.
Bir Tawil – sand, rocks and not much else.
The origins of Bir Tawil’s unclaimed existence go back to the end of the 19th century. In 1899 the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium Agreement for Sudan set the border between Sudan and Egypt at the 22nd parallel. However, in 1902, the United Kingdom decided to draw a separate administrative boundary, hoping it would better reflect the actual use of the land by tribes in the area.
The location of Bir Tawil.
Bir Tawil had previously been used as grazing land by the Ababda tribe based near Aswan in Egypt. Thus, it was placed under Egyptian control as outlined by the new boundary. Conversely, another patch of land called the Hala’ib Triangle was placed under control of the British governor of Sudan.
These imaginary lines went largely unnoticed until 1956, when Sudan finally achieved independence. The new Sudanese government declared its national borders as those expressed in the 1902 administrative boundary, which made the much larger Hala’ib Triangle part of Sudan, and the smaller Bir Tawil part of Egypt.
Egypt, on the other hand, asserted that this was meant to be a temporary administrative jurisdiction, and that sovereignty had been established in the 1899 treaty, which set the border at the 22nd parallel. This would place the Hala’ib Triangle under Egyptian control, giving Bir Tawil to Sudan.
From the perspective of both countries, it makes little economic sense to claim Bir Tawil, since doing so would concede the Hala’ib Triangle to the other. The Hala’ib Triangle is about 10 times larger than Bir Tawil, and is located on the Red Sea, which makes it more valuable to both parties.
The unique state of Bir Tawil has drawn outsiders to visit this ‘no mans land’ In 2011, Jack Shenker visited the region, planting a multicolored flag to stake his claim. In 2014, Jeremiah Heaton made a similar trek, also planting a flag to claim the region as the Kingdom of North Sudan.
Jack Shenker during his visit to Bir Tawil.
Jeremiah Heaton during his visit to Bir Tawil.
As of 2022, the dispute rages on, and since no third country has claimed this ‘no man’s land’, Bir Tawil remains one of the few areas in the world not recognized by any country.
Alistair Bonnett’s book “ Off the Map Lost Spaces, Invisible Cities, Forgotten Islands, Feral Places and What They Tell Us About the World” Aurum Publishing 2014 was used as the basis for this blog post.
In the early hours of August 11 1994, the crew of the Lady Marion were trawling the peaceful waters of the Hawkesbury River north of Sydney looking for prawns, when captain Mark Peterson felt an almighty tug in his net – but his catch wasn’t the nice big haul he was hoping for. Instead, what was caught in his net was a metal cross covered in plastic bags — and under those bags were the decaying remains of a human body, tied to the cross with wires.
Photo of the Lady Marion, with the metal cross in the foreground.
Police were called immediately, but since the body had been submerged for some time (a least a year, by the coroner’s estimation) it was difficult to collect any forensic evidence. The coroner could tell it was the body of a man, a rather diminutive one at that (around 165cm), who had dark hair and may have been of Mediterranean heritage, and aged between 20 and 45 years old.
It was almost as if the man had gone out of his way to be unidentifiable — or somebody had taken pains to ensure this was the case. He had no personal belongings on him, save for a packet of cigarettes and a lighter. His clothing was unmarked and mass-produced: an “Everything Australia” polo shirt and “No Sweat” trackpants, both sized medium.
Forensic anthropologists worked with the man’s bone structure to create a facial reconstruction for police to circulate, and once that was made public, many members of the public came forward with possible identifications of the man, who became known as “Rack Man” thanks to the metal contraption he was found strapped to.
Facial reconstructions of the “Rack Man”
What was clear, though, was this was a deliberate and meticulous killing. The steel-framed crucifix was custom-built for the unidentified man. The welding was professional and concise, and the cross-frame matched the man’s outstretched arma perfectly. It was also far too heavy for a single person to have lifted and dumped into the river, suggesting more than one perpetrator.
Sydney Daily Telegraph report of the discovery of the “Rack Man”.
Leads provided by the public saw police investigate a number of shady missing persons: convicted drug dealer Joe Biviano from the Sydney suburb of Drummoyne; Kings Cross businessman Peter Mitris and Chris Dale Flannery, known to underworld figures as “Mr. Renta-Kill”. All these leads were dismissed due to discrepancies in height, dental records and other identifying factors. A reward for information on who was the “Rack Man” was increased over time until it hit $100,000. With no clues as to his real identity, the “Rack Man” lay refrigerated in an inner-Sydney morgue for 25 years.
Then a breakthrough occurred. DNA testing led to the “Rack Man” being identified as 37 year old Max Tancevski, who had disappeared from Sydney in January 1993, and who had been considered as a possible suspect.
Max Tancesvki, aka “Rack Man”
DNA technology in the mid-1990’s was not advanced enough to make a positive identification. Tancevski was known to be a heavy gambler – had he borrowed money to fund his gambling and was unable to pay back his debt? The unusual method of killing and/or disposing of the body was excessive, and is unlikely to be a random attack carried out by a stranger. This sort of crime scene is more concurrent with gang related violence, done with the intent of sending a message to warn others not to cross the killers again.
Police had no idea who committed the murder, but information was passed on to the NSW cold case homicide squad to investigate further. As of July 2022, the identity of the person(s) who murdered Tancevski are still unknown.
Justine Ford’s book “Unsolved Australia – Who Was the Rack Man?” Macmillan Publishing, Sydney 2015, pp.115-123 was used as the main source for this blog post.
The thylacine, also common known as the Tasmanian won, was a voracious predatory marsupial wild dog. At one time the animal lived on the Australian mainland, but competition from dingoes probably led to its demise there. When Europeans started to explore Tasmania found many new animal species that had to be dealt with, including the thylacine, which fed on kangaroos, wallabies, and with the arrival of the Europeans, farmers flocks and dogs. The thylacine’s other nicknames – “Tasmanian tiger”, “Kangaroo Wolf” and “Zebra Wolf” are a good description of its appearance. It had the head and teeth of a wolf, the stripes of a tiger on its rear and the tail of a small kangaroo. Being a marsupial, it carried its young in a backward opening pouch similar to the opossum.
An artists impression of the thylacine.
The menace of the thylacine to newly introduced farms was recognised by the Tasmanian government, and towards the end of the 19th century the authorities offered bounties for each thylacine destroyed. This marked the beginning of the end for the thylacine. The last known killing of a thylacine in the wild , a young male occurred in 1930. Another thylacine was captured in 1933 and taken to the Hobart Zoo, where it died in 1936. The only known footage of a thylacine was taken as this time, and shows the animal’s distinctive appearance.
The first of only two known examples of footage of a thylacine, taken at the Hobart Zoo in 1933. Colour added by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.
The thylacine was gone – or was it? According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the world authority on rare and threatened species, the thylacine was officially declared extinct in 1982. Many Tasmanians however, have refused to accept that the species has disappeared, with some spending years searching obsessively for the thylacine. While there have been many reported sightings of what were purported to be a thylacine, there has been no clear definite visual proof, such as clear photos or video footage, as well as any physical remains, such as a skeleton, fur or droppings. With a large majority of the 64,000km² island being uninhabited forest, as well as protected reserves, many people believe that the thylacine is surviving in these rugged areas.
As well as amateurs, scientists have also shown an interest in objectively determining if the thylacine still exists. The Thylacine Research Unit is a group of scientists, naturalists and specialists that investigate reliable sightings, and have built an extensive collection of witness sightings and alleged film footage.
The thylacine is like UFOs and the Loch Ness Monster – people’s hearts want to believe that they exist, but the head says that until physical proof or irrefutable visual evidence appears, they are a mystery that will continue to fascinate people for a long time to come.
“The Last Thylacine” in Christopher Slee’s book “The Guinness Book of Lasts”, Guinness Publishing London, 1994, pp.103-104 was used as the basis for this blog post.
Eugenia Falleni was born in Florence, Tuscany in 1876 and went to New Zealand with her parents as a child. At 19 her father forced her into a marriage with an Italian man named Braseli. When it turned out that Braseli was already married, Eugenia ran away to sea, told people her name was Eugene and, dressed as a man, worked as a cabin boy on a Norwegian barque. It is believed that she dressed as a man so that she could go to sea, and for the next couple of years she carried off this deception on a variety of ships plying the South Pacific.
One man, however, knew her secret. Martello, a fellow Italian sailor, got Eugenia pregnant in 1898. Eugenia returned to the New South Wales port of Newcastle, where Martello disappeared from her life. Eugenia moved to Sydney and gave birth to a daughter named Josephine and resumed her life as a man. By now she was accustomed to passing herself as a man, and could earn more at a job than what she would receive if she was a woman. Eugenia may have been a lesbian, but there is no indication of this in what is known of her private life, and the fact that her first wife, Annie Birkett, was shocked to discover her deception suggests otherwise.
Calling herself Harry Crawford, she told a childless couple that Josephine’s mother had died and asked them to raise her as their granddaughter. Sporadically, ‘Harry’ visited Josephine in the couple’s home in Double Bay, Sydney.
Harry Crawford was unstable and quarrelsome and drinking exacerbated his dark nature. He was in and out of menial jobs until in 1912, a Dr Clarke of Wahroonga employed him as a general hand and coachman. Dr Clarke’s housekeeper was a pretty widow, Annie Birkett, 30 who had a young son, also named Harry. For two years Crawford courted Birkett, until in 1914 she Dr Clarke’s employment, opened a corner store in Darling Street, Balmain and married him.
Soon after, Josephine moved back into the Balmain home. By this time she knew Harry’s real identity, but told no-one. Discovering that your father is your mother must have been traumatising, and soon Harry and Josephine fell out – Josephine stayed out late at night and caused much anguish, which lead to Harry and Annie fighting constantly. Annie gave up on the marriage, and moved to Kogarah to live with her sister, taking young Harry with her. When Josephine found a job and moved out to her own lodgings , Harry persuaded his wife to return, and they moved to a house in Drummoyne.
In September 1917, Annie told a relative that she had found something amazing about her husband. What that was she didn’t say, and she never revealed what she had discovered.
On the 28th of September, Harry and Annie went for a picnic in the Lane Cove National Park. There, in a secluded spot, Harry battered Annie to death and threw her body onto a bonfire where, three days later, a boy stumbled upon her charred remains. The discovery of the unknown body was reported and quickly forgotten, due to the news of Australian troops suffering heavy casualties in the fighting on the Western Front.
Harry Crawford went home and told young Harry that Annie was visiting friends, and then took the boy to Watson’s Bay. The two climbed up to The Gap and Harry, slipping through the safety fence, went to the edge of the cliff and invited the boy to join him. Feeling nervous, young Harry declined.
Harry Crawford told his neighbours that his wife had run off with a plumber. He sold their furniture and moved out with young Harry to a boarding house in Cathedral Street, Wolloomooloo in October 1917. Later that month, he told young Harry they were going out. The two walked out of the boarding house into a thunderstorm and trudged through the rain – Harry carrying a spade and a bottle of brandy, young Harry following behind. When they got on a tram at Kings Cross, young Harry started feeling nervous again, as he was watched his stepfather sitting silently, brooding and clutching the spade. When they got off the tram at Double Bay and walked into the scrub young Harry was frightened, which turned to absolute terror when they came to a secluded clearing and Harry started to dig into the ground. Harry then ordered his stepson to keep digging. The two of them took turns, digging while the thunder rolled and the lightning lit up the scene. Young Harry realised that the whole was a grave, which was big enough – for him. Luckily for him, Harry threw the spade into the trees and told the boy there were going home.
By the time they returned to the boarding house, Harry was totally drunk and told the landlady, Mrs Schieblich that the room they were staying in was haunted. Mrs Schieblich replied ‘I think it is your wife haunting you. I think you killed her.’ Harry slumped to the kitchen table and began sobbing. He virtually admitted killing Annie, telling Mrs Schieblich he had argued with his wife and given her ‘a crack over the head’.
Mrs Schieblich was no fool, and didn’t go to the police. She was of German background, and it was wise for people with such a background to keep a low profile at a time when her countrymen were killing Australians by the thousands. But she wanted Harry out of her house. Young Harry was living safely with Annie Birkett’s sister, and Mrs Schieblich sent Harry packing when she told him the police had called the house looking for him. Harry left the house at once.
Amazingly, Harry married again in 1919, and was able to deceive his new wife, who praised her ‘dear loving husband’. But young Harry, now aged 16 and his aunt, never having heard from Annie or the plumber she was said to have run off with, finally decided to go to the police. Dates were checked, dental remains were shown to Annie’s dentist and on the 5th of October 1920, three years after the fatal picnic, Harry Crawford was charged with the murder of his wife and taken to Long Bay Goal. There he was told to undress, have a bath and put on prison clothes. Harry agreed, but said he would have to do it in the women’s section. At first the prison authorities refused to believe her. A doctor was called, and after an examination he immediately declared that Harry Crawford was a woman.
Harry Crawford aka Eugenia Falleni after being arrested in 1920
The trial of the ‘man-woman’ Eugenia Falleni was a sensation. She appeared in court in women’s clothing, the first time in 30 years she had worn them. Found guilty of murder and sentenced to death, the sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. Falleni was released in 1931 and lived the remainder of her life, in women’s clothing, as Mrs Jean Ford.
Mrs Ford bought a house in Glenmore Road, Paddington where she lived quietly, always maintaining her innocence to those few who knew her real identity. On the 9th of June 1938, she stepped off the kerb in Oxford Street and was hit by a car, dying shortly afterwards. No-one could trace Mrs Jean Ford’s relatives, or discover her background. Fingerprints were taken, and it was discovered that the dead woman was Eugenia Falleni. She had outlived her daughter Josephine who died in 1924, aged just 26.
“Australian Ripping Yarns” by Paul Taylor (Five Mile Press, Rowville, Victoria, 2005) was used as the main source for this blog post.
After 3 rounds of the 1987 Australian Open golf championship at the Royal Melbourne Golf Club, Greg Norman was leading the tournament by seven strokes, after recording scores of 70, 66 and 66 (202) in the first three rounds. His third victory in the tournament seemed guaranteed. Only something extraordinary could stop him winning after the fourth round was completed. That something was the pin placement on the third green.
The third hole at the Royal Melbourne Golf Club was a par-4 of 304 metres (333 yards). The greens usually played fast and contained many subtle humps and hollows, which made judging speed very tricky. After playing in the 1974 Chrysler Classic, American golfer Lee Trevino called the greens a joke, and received a $500 fine from the Austraian Professional Golfers’ Association as a result.
This day, though, there was the added hazard of a northerly wind that blew between 55 kph (35 mph) and 80 kph (55 mph). More crucially, the pin had been placed in an up-slope position where it was vulnerable to the wind. Later investigation showed that an assistant greenkeeper had set the pin 1.8 metres (2 yards) from the intended position. The following page shows the exposed location of the green:
After starting his final round, it took Norman over an hour to play the first two holes. The problem was the queue forming on the third tee – at one point there were 20 players waiting to tee off.
Spectators standing near the third green saw three hours of comedy rather than skill. Players discovered that putts would not stop rolling within 3.6 metres (4 yards) of the hole. To get down in four putts was a good achievement – many took five or six putts, while Russell Swanson took eight putts to hole out. Players lingered on the green while trying to work out how to hole out, which led to the massive logjam on the tee.
Caddies attempted to mark balls only to find them still moving, perhaps rolling back down a slope after going up it. Larry Nelson’s caddie touched the ball, and Nelson received a two-stroke penalty. Brett Ogle was more fortunate than most – his putt went half a metre past the hole, but as his caddie went to mark the ball the wind blew it back into the hole. Mike Colandro putted next and could be forgiven for thinking luck was against him. He hit four successive putts – all from approximately 4.5 to 6 metres (15 to 20 feet) and saw them all follow the same course. The ball ran round the edge of the cup for almost a complete circle and set off back towards his feet. Colandro sank his fifth putt. He had been level par at the start of the round – by the fifth hole he was eight over par. Mike Harwood had his caddie place his golf bag on the green lengthways to act as a rudimentary form of windbreak. This led to him being given the nickname “Exacto”- Exacto is a well-known Australian brand of windcheater jacket.
Here is the Australian Broadcasting Corporation highlights package of the tournament, which has brief highlights of the debacle at the third hole and the subsequent walk-off of the players.
Ronan Rafferty and Sandy Lyle both refused to complete the third hole. The golfers on the third tee – the five waiting groups included leader Norman – walked off in support rather than risk being humiliated. The players were angry, the spectators were furious, and the sponsors were confused. Five times British Open champion Peter Thomson said it was “a day of shame for Australian golf”.
The tournament organisers considered the options they had available to complete the tournament. The 1985 Australian Open, coincidentally also held at Royal Melbourne, was changed to a 54-hole tournament after a day was lost to rain, but this decision had been severely criticised. Another option was to have a 71-hole tournament, eliminating the third hole, but this idea was soon rejected. That left only one option – switch the final round to the next day (Monday) and make sure that the pin was correctly positioned on the third hole. Even that solution had problems, as many players had already booked flights to New Zealand or Europe for their next tournament. A move to boycott the rescheduled final round provoked a heated debate amongst the players. In the end they agreed to play, although several players had to pull out due to other commitments, including Lyle. On the Monday Norman clinched the title with a record 10 stroke victory (15 under par)
This wasn’t the only occasion in Australian tournament history where fast greens and winds caused havoc – the 2002 Australian Open was reduced to 54 holes due to the granite-like nature of the greens, with all of the greens watered overnight and not trimmed in order to slow them down. In the 1993 South Australian Open, the first round was abandoned after the greens, which had been triple-cut the evening before, became unplayable. In the 1998 Australian PGA, play in the third round was suspended when the 17th green became unplayable because of high winds but was re-started the next day.
“Golf’s Strangest Rounds” by Andrew Ward, Robson Books, London, 1999 p.251-253 was the main source of information for this blog post.
Swan Island is located just off Honduras and until 1972 was disputed between Honduras and the United States. The island got its name–reportedly–because it was used as a base for a pirate named Swan in the 17th century. Swan Island also had a long history of use by the United States government.
Big Swan Island – Little Swan Island can be seen at the bottom of the picture.
One of the most important uses was the collection of guano. The Guano Islands Act of 1856 allowed the United States to designate otherwise unclaimed territory as part of the United States for the purpose of collecting guano which, in addition to being bird excrement, is also important because it contains phosphates used in fertilizer and gunpowder.
However, the most famous occupant of Swan Island was Radio Swan which broadcast on the AM radio band and shortwave. The station was owned by the Gibraltar Steamship Company with an office in Miami, Florida. Oddly, though, the company didn’t actually have any steamships. What it did have was some radio transmitters that had been used by Radio Free Europe and brought to the island by the United States Navy. The Gibraltar Steamship Company was actually a front for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), who in May 1960 started Radio Swan to broadcast Spanish-language propaganda into Cuba, which had recently been taken over by Fidel Castro’s revolution. These were created and broadcast by various Cuban dissident groups in Miami.
A QSL card from Radio Swan/Radio Americas showing the station’s location near Cuba.
However, infighting between these groups as well as misleading information lead to Radio Swan announcing in May 1961 that it would no longer carry political broadcasts and switched to reporting news, which was under the direct control of the CIA. This news carried coded messages, presumably aimed for Cuban dissidents who had fled Cuba after Castro took power. In April 1961 the station gave a coded message stating that the Bay of Pigs operation had commenced – an attempt by Cuban dissidents and US special forces to overthrow Castro, and that all Cubans should join in and make the invasion a success.. The message was:
Alert! Alert! Look well at the rainbow. The fish will rise soon. Chico is in the house. Visit him. The sky is blue. The fish will not take much time to rise. The fish is red.
As history showed, the Bay of Pigs operation was a fiasco, with the United States involvement being exposed. Radio Swan changed its name to Radio Americas, and continued broadcasting until mid-1968.
The following webpages were used for the creation of this blog post:
Graham's Blog 