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!




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cruden Bay Golf Club

Image
To help entice you avid golfers out there to come over to Scotland for a golf tour this summer I will be posting some pictures of my favourite Scottish golf courses over the next few weeks.  It is going to be a super golf season here in Scotland with the Open Championship returning to Turnberry in July and the majority of our major golf courses having retained last years prices. Added to this the strength of the Dollar against the British Pound, it really has never been a better time for visiting golfers to tour in Scotland. Golf tours are approximately 20% cheaper than last year!  This is the unique Cruden Bay located just north of Aberdeen on the east coast of Scotland. An astonishing links golf course that one will find hard to prepare for in a golfing sense...in fact nothing can prepare you for Cruden Bay! A one off. The view from the clubhouse over the Starters Hut to the magnificent links. It is a truly splendid links golf course with a tremendous location 20 or so miles north of
Read more

Identifying My Golf Ball

Image
I have over the years seen, in competition golf and fun bounce games, that it is really important to have a clear unique identification on your golf ball. I played in a wee competition a few weeks ago and all three golfers had one red dot marked next to the Titliest brand name! What are the chances? Boyne's identifying mark. After a wee think that evening I decided to go for a four dot two colour combination. The reasoning was that no other golfer is going to be this anal to sit for an hour and put a mark like it on his golf balls. I may need to get a life?!?
Read more

The St. Andrews Town Match 2013

Image
St. Andrews held the 100th playing of the Town Match on Saturday 14th September. This historic event is played between the local & international members of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club against the two main local golf clubs in the town: St. Andrews Golf Club and the New Club. 1st tee Old Course at St. Andrews Scotland There were 171 foursomes matches played over the Old Course, New Course, Jubilee Course and 1/2 dozen or so were even were golfed on the Strathtyrum Course. This amounts to 684 golfers in what must rank as one of the largest one day golf competitions in the world. The R&A Team view the 8th Jubilee Course Our match was played on the Jubilee Course at 3.20pm in great conditions as can be seen by the few photographs taken while we waited to tee off on the Par 4 8th. My playing partner Mr. Thomson The Par 4 8th fairway, Jubilee Course Putting out on the Par 4 8th green, Jubilee Course The game was played in good spirits, as it should be,
Read more