St. Rule Trophy


Goodness gracious, that was an amazingly tough St. Rule Trophy that was played on the New Course Saturday and then two rounds across the Old Course on Sunday.

The wind blew, like it only does when playing golf over the links, making scoring extremely difficult. Laura Murray, my Scottish amateur golfer for the weekend, played well in the conditions and finished with a 78. Laura produced two wonderful shots 'of the day' : a 3 wood to 8 feet, on the par5 6th hole, resulting in a Birdie, and then a wonderful chip & run into the hole, from 40 yards, on the 18th for an Eagle. A fabulous finish to our first round that could have been a couple of shots worse without that fantastic 9 iron chip & run into the cup.

The second and third rounds were played on the Sunday over the Old Course at St. Andrews. The par for the ladies is 76. A quiet, relaxed, start on the practice range with just a light breeze developed into a gusting 15/20 mph north easterly wind that added an extra degree of difficulty to this world famous links.

Our first round resulted in 78 (out 37 & in 41) and the second round was another 78 (out 33 & in 45). The back nine on both rounds proved to be extremely difficult and a couple of sloppy short putts at the 12th & 15th cost her dearly over the first morning round.

We decide to shoot for everything on our afternoon round over the Old Course. Nothing to loose. An eagle on the 2nd gave us a good start and after some consolidating pars we proceeded to birdie the 7th and the 9th and were out in 33. Then for the back nine. A bad start bogey on the relatively simple par4 10th, double bogey on 11th, another bogey on 13 after hitting a fairway bunker from the drive, then the drive Out of Bounds on the 17th Road hole which eventually resulted in an 8! Tragic.

We finished in a tie for 11th on a total of 234. The winner was the defending Champion Kylie Walker, total 218, also from Scotland who plays out of Buchanan Castle, a lovely golf course that is only 8 miles from my house.

A good weekend that was tinged with some disappointment that we did not get into a top 5 finish. Laura is a wonderful golfer with a really good temperment and should be ready for the dreaded tour school at the end of this year.

I hope that her first 'caddie experience' has not put her off golf!




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