Caddie Golf Tours

The official winter golf season has begun in St Andrews and it is marked by a reduction in green fees as well as the annual introduction of the 'fairway mats' which appeared on the Old Course on 10th November and are set to remain until 31st March 2021. The fairway mat protects the turf during these cold months, allowing play to continue on the legendary St Andrews Links with a perfect lie each time and helping to present the fairways in peak condition for the new golf season. They will also be used on the New, Jubilee, Eden and Strathtyrum courses from 1st December until 12th March 2021. The Castle Course will close this weekend, Sunday 29th November, for its' winter rest until it returns for play on 1st March 2021 when it will also have the fairway mats in use until the end of the month.

Over the last couple of months of this horrendous Coronavirus Covid-19 and its sudden impact on the world, and in our case golf in particular, Caddie Golf Tours have been in constant communication with our golfers, home and overseas, about the various scenarios this will have on their 2020 Scotland Golf Tours. Carnoustie Championship 18th With the British government placing the whole country in a 'lockdown' on 24th March, the most disruptive for all would be to cancel and return money deposited or even fully paid. All terms and conditions about cancellation fees written into our contracts have been revisited and revised due to the horrendous nature of this virus. Kingsbarns Golf Links 12th tee The overriding thought has been to reschedule the golf tours to a later date. The difficulty doing it for later this year in 2020, is no one knows when the 'lockdown' will be lifted, our golf courses and accommodation opened and even if international travel would be...

The St Andrews Links Trust officially announced last week that they are to reintroduce the reverse route on the Old Course for two days, 29th and 30th November. Golfers will have the opportunity to play the Old Course in the original clockwork direction, thus the infamous 17th Road hole now becomes the 1st, and then the 16th, as we know it now, will be the 2nd and so on. A red flag on 17th green "reverse" course If I remember correctly it was last played in reverse during April 2008, over an Easter weekend. A unique Ballot was held at the end of last week and those golfers who submitted an application have been informed if they were successful. The 1st green with red flag becomes the 17th green As it is the end of the year daylight hours are in short supply and tee times will be between 08:40 and 12 noon. Only 3 hours with 21 tee times adding up to 84 golfers. On Saturday 30th November a competition will be held for local golf clubs and is therefore limited...

Scotscraig GC is one of our great challenging links golf courses, located 20 minutes from St Andrews, it has been host to numerous final qualifying for The Open Championship when played on the Old Course and at Carnoustie. A testimont to the quality of this hybrid links-parkland course and an obvious choice for the Kingsbarns Golf Society annual golf outing. Scotscraid  Scotscraig is one of Scotland's older courses being founded 1817 and is much loved by local golfers and those from overseas. The sea may not be viewed from the course but the turf plays linksland due to the sand base and the golf holes genuinely test the golfer. Recent history brings the excellent former World No1, US Open Champion and Olympic Gold Medalist...Justin Rose to the fore. He played Scotscraig GC to gain entry to the Open, when younger,  and made such an impression that an Honorary Membership was bestowed. The annual Kingsbarns Golf Society, circa 1793, had this year's outing...

The 2019 Simpson Cup match was golfed on St Andrews Links, May 19-22, 2019, with the final singles round played over the Old Course St Andrews on Wednesday 22nd. I had the pleasure of caddying with David from GB&I team, a former Captain of the match, we were pitted against USA veteran Scott, giving him 5 shots on the Old Course, which he used to his advantage defeating us on the 16th green. We continued to golf the 17th and 18th enjoying the full experience on the legendary links with good company. The Simpson Cup is an annual Ryder Cup-style event between 13 UK and US injured Servicemen and Veterans. It is supported by On Course Foundation a 501(c)(3) Non-profit that supports the recovery of injured Service members and veterans via golf events and jobs in the golf industry.

We are now at the end of October 2018 and the visiting golfers, as well as daylight, are slowly disappearing as we head into the our quieter winter season. Old Course 16th fairway. The St Andrews greenkeepers have been tasked with moving the pathway that runs alongside the right side of the Old Course from the 2nd hole, Dyke, through to the 6th hole, Heathery out, at the request of the R&A. Old Course 5th tee, right side. The R&A want the pathway moved and widened to accommodate the increasing volume of spectator and vehicle traffic that has now become apart of the modern Open Championship. Old Course 5th fairway & New Course 3rd tee. Initially this meant the removal of the golf ball grasping gorse bushes that run down the right side of the Old Course fairway and left side adjacent New Course. Old Course rain shelter at 6th tee. The old rain shelter that has sat next to the Old Course 6th tee for my 17 years here at St Andrews, and goodness knows how ...

In June this year a lovely brood of ducklings enjoyed paddling the Swilken Burn on the Old Course, St Andrews. The ducklings offered a pleasant distraction for the golfers while they played their approach shots over the infamous Swilken Burn and onto the 1st green.

Our lovely Swedish golfers, Pettersson Party, arrived in early April and went on to enjoy golf in and around St Andrews. A great week of golf during a chilly early April that did not deter our hardy Swedish golfers.

The great late Seve Ballesteros would have celebrated his 61st birthday today and my wee tribute is his golf ball at the Old Course St Andrews...Fore!

My brother, David, arrived for his annual Christmas visit to our village of Kingsbarns and I thought it would be good fun to get him out golfing again, it is 14 years since he last swung a club! Realistically the Old Course is too difficult for David now so we popped down to the fun Strathtyrum Course, here at the St Andrews Links. Played 14 holes, laughed a lot, searched for golf balls in the gorse bushes, hit some great shots and sank a few good putts! A successful round of winter golf on the Strathtyrum Course St Andrews, we are now ready for a good dinner and some Christmas cheer...Fore!

My own lovely Christmas gift of a 2018 St Andrews Golf Club membership came through the post today. This is a special year for the St Andrews Golf Club, established in 1843, it is celebrating 175 years with events, dinners, a club photograph out on the steps behind the Old Course 18th green and a few golf competitions sprinkled through the year. The 2018 fixture list, above, seems fuller than usual with a number of 175th celebratory competitions being played on the Old course on a Sunday which is very rare. I will be getting my 2018 calendar out and marking off these competitions dates...Fore!   

Last evening we attended the book launch of 'A History of Golf' written by our friend Roger McStavrick, at the wonderful book store Topping & Co here in St Andrews. Roger addressing audience in Topping & Co Roger is a golf historian, author and local St Andrews golfer who over the last 3 years has published the award winning 'St Andrews, In the Footsteps of Tom Morris' and the delightful children's book 'Little Tommy Morris'. LB with Roger McStavrick A lovely evening hosted by Topping & Co with Roger regaling the audience with some selected golf stories from his extensive research in St Andrews and further afield. A joy to meet up again and arrange that round on the Old Course in October...Fore!

A wonderful sight of a mother with her 7 little ducklings crossing the exposed Par 3 8th green on the Old Course heading for the safety of the long grass and Eden Estuary. We are pleased to report that they did reach the quietness of the little pond at the far end of the Eden Course and Estuary.

The St Andrews Golf Club confirmed my membership of their golf club last week and sent through a list of this years competitions to be played on the wonderful St Andrews links courses that include: Old Course, New Course, Jubilee Course, Eden Course and Castle Course. My own personal golf challenge during the 2017 golf season is to retain the 8 handicap I have (mysteriously) held for the last couple of years and goodness more than a little help from the golfing gods will not go amiss! A super year of golf is going to be enjoyed here in St Andrews no matter what develops with my handicap! You may not be a member of a local St Andrews Golf Club but you too can visit, play golf and enjoy the historic town of St Andrews. Caddie Golf Tours look forward to your enquiry for this year or beyond, cheers for now, John Boyne.

Now would be a good time to contact Caddie Golf Tours and take advantage of the late release of Old Course St Andrews tee times in April, May and June 2017 and your fourball could be putting out on 17th green as Nigel was in May of this year...Fore! Contact us caddiegolftours@gmail.com or through usual social media on Twitter and Facebook and G+

This morning I noticed that my bedside table was starting to build up a pile of golf books. I completed the 'Tom Morris Colossus of Golf' a couple of months ago, but have found that I am still dipping into it for the depth of information contained therein.  I am currently reading 'Golf on the Rocks' a fun golf travelogue around the island golf courses of Scotland, an easy to read light humoured wee book, with author Gary Sutherland honouring his father's memory and trying to find the hole with his inherited putter. He has unearthed some amazing courses that I did not know about and now intrigue Caddie Golf Tours to find out more.   Golf books on the table 'Tommy's Honour' has finally arrived on the table and although only a couple of chapters in I know that it is going to give some good light golf history relating to Old Tom Morris and his legendary son Tom and be an easy page turner. A movie of the book was made last year, it should be in c...

2015 St Andrews Caddies Outing, Charleston GC The annual St Andrews Caddies golf outing takes place tomorrow Sunday 28th August at Thornton Golf Club  We have 9 tee times from 11:00 - 12:20pm and the weather is set fair on this lovely parkland course 50 minutes south of St Andrews and 35 caddies taking part. The coach begins the pick ups at 8am in Dundee then onto St Andrews followed by the towns of Cupar and Leven arriving at Thornton GC around 10am. Morning Beers will be supplied for caddies on the coach. The new St Andrews Caddie Trophy for Champion Golfer A new Trophy, a Claret Jug replica, has been purchased with contributions from the St Andrews Caddies for the Champion Golfer amongst us. We also have a wonderful accumulation of prizes donated from local businesses that include Old Course Hotel The Dukes Golf Course Kingsbarns Whisky Distillery Dunvegan Hotel Aucherterlonies Golf Shop St Andrews Links Trust The Royal & Ancient Golf Club  the legend...