Caddie Golf Tours

The 2010 caddie golf season, for me, has ended. Always a wee bit sad knowing that it may be another 5 months before I get the opportunity to work on the famous links of the Old, New and Jubilee courses at St. Andrews. Boynie and his golfer in discussion.   An excellent last couple of rounds finished off my season on the Old and New courses respectively with a James a good English golf club professional who had came over last year with seven members from his golf course near Munich, Germany, where he has been based for the last 17 years. He loved it so much last year that he brought three of his best mates over this autumn for their opportunity to enjoy St. Andrews. James played pretty well over the two days scoring a 74 on a windy, but dry, Old Course and then a one under par 70 on a rain sodden New Course. Afterwards we spent a good couple of hours in the St. Andrews Golf Club discussing the round over a few beers and the odd whisky while looking over the 18th green of the Ol...

The month of September has come along pretty quickly as it seems only a moment ago that the Open Championship was being held on the Old Course at St. Andrews and the young South African, Louis Oosthuizen, was holding aloft the Claret Jug as champion golfer for 2010. We caddies at the St. Andrews Links have been working damn hard since that time and have barely came up for air over the last two months. Constant double loops from Monday through Friday with many also working at the weekend has been good, and in the main profitable, but a wee rest is required and it generally comes during the second and third week of September when the R&A play their 'Autumn Meeting' competitions. If a caddie can get three rounds on both of these weeks he will have done well. This is one of the reasons that we shall be holding our annual St. Andrews Caddies Golf Outing on Thursday 16th September. Dukes Course 18th green from the balcony of the clubhouse. The venue this year is the fabulou...

The Scottish Open begins this coming Thursday, 8th July, so I'll be heading across to Loch Lomond Golf Club early tomorrow morning to visit the Tournament Office and get my name registered on the caddie list.  The beautiful setting of the par3 11th green on Loch Lomond GC  The course is only 30 minutes drive from my village and with the Old Course closed due to the staging of the 150th Open Championship in 10 days it will offer a good diversion and with a wee bit of luck a job caddying for the practice rounds and then the tournament.

The Old Course at St. Andrews officially closed to visitors on Saturday 19th June allowing the greenkeepers three full weeks of maintenance and fine tweaking prior to the week of the 150th Open Championship. A view across Granny Clark's Wynd that dissects the 1st & 18th fairways on the Old Course. The majority of the grandstands have been erected with those along the 16th fairway and the new 17th Road hole tee nearing completion . The experience of playing the Old Course, with the infrastructure in place, for the amateur golfers is excellent and we have only seen a couple of shots from the 1st tee ending up in the seating area down the right of the fairway! The wonderful 18th green, Tom Morris, on the Old Course. The golf course is looking a wee bit green in this set of photographs but the last two weeks of warm and sunny weather has begun to 'brown' up the fairways, creating the hard running, fast, bouncy and fiery look that is an integral part of any Open Champio...

The Greenkeeper on the Old Course at St. Andrews, Gordon McKie, has been writing a wee Blog on the upkeep of the golf course prior to the Championship and his most recent entry concerns the re-building of the 17th Road hole bunker: The warm weather continues, so the dry conditions are still with us! We have spent quite a bit of time this week handwatering various areas of the course including greens, tees and bunker tops to keep them hydrated during this dry spell. Automatic irrigation is still in use from time to time as I feel it is still too early to dry things out for the tournament, once we get a better forecast we shall be able to start drying things out for the Open week itself. This week I have finalised all staff rotas and informed everybody of what tasks they will be carrying out through the week. Big job this week was to re-build the Road Hole bunker - the bunker takes a lot of play and the face becomes very eroded with sand and the feeling was that it would not surv...

I have just logged into the official web site - www.opengolf.com - of the 150th Open Championship and read the disappointing news that the legendary Seve Balesteros has been advised by his doctors not to make the journey to St. Andrews in July. A great shame that his supporters will not be able to see him play upon the Old Course once again but his long term health must take priority. The article follows: 24 June 2010 16:43 GMT On 22 June, three-time Open Champion Severiano Ballesteros visited his doctors at La Paz Hospital in Madrid. During his visit, Ballesteros underwent tests which he repeats every three months. These check-ups are routine and monitor the progress of the Spaniard following his diagnosis of a brain tumor in October 2008. The medical team, which is responsible for Ballesteros’ well-being, have informed him that at this time he should not put himself under any undue stress, or in potentially emotional situations. It is for this reason that they have advised hi...

Your very own St. Andrews Caddie, me, and good friend David Coyne will be starting our 96 mile charity walk along the famous West Highland Way which begins in Milngavie on the north side of Glasgow, winds its' way along the stunningly beautiful Loch Lomond, up and down a few mountains into the magnificent Highlands of Scotland and our final destination of Fort William. The Old Course at St. Andrews will be closing down next Saturday for three weeks as the greenkeepers make their final preparations for the Open Championship and it was felt that this would be a good time to do something worthwhile. The journey is expected to take five days, beginning on Saturday 19th June and finishing on Wednesday 23rd June. An average days walk will be 20 miles...we should manage it! John Boyne  and David Coyne  with 1998 Open Champion Mark O'Meara last Friday who supports the St. Andrews Caddies Charity Walk   Any sponsorship contributions can be made at the Caddie Pavilion adja...

This article confirming former Open Champions who have agreed to participate in the Past Champions' Challenge appeared on the official open web site: www.opengolf.com 26 May 2010 15:27 GMT Open Champions with victories spanning over 50 years, from five-time winner Peter Thomson in 1954 right up to 2009’s Champion, Stewart Cink, have confirmed their intention to participate in The Open Champions’ Challenge. 28 of 32 Champions have accepted the invitation to play four holes of the Old Course, the first, second, 17th and 18th on Wednesday 14 July, the day before the 150th Anniversary Open Championship gets underway. Crowds of over 30,000 are expected to line the fairways to watch the event, which will see Seve Ballesteros return to the golf course after being diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2008. The three-time Open Champion, who was the first to confirm his appearance in the Challenge, is set to return to St Andrews to a rapturous reception, 26 years after he famously triumphed o...

Having this little recently acquired bolt away 'holiday home' based just outside St. Andrews is fantastic. On Friday afternoon we departed our village and drove across to the 'van' in an hour & forty minutes, unpacked, contacted the St. Andrews Links & booked a tee time on the Strathtyrum (the Eden had a competition on it) for Saturday morning and then popped up to the local pub, Dairsie Inn, for a couple of pints and dinner.  The Par3 13th on the Strathtyrum Course, St. Andrews It was an early tee time, 7.52am, so as is usual practice amongst Scottish golfers there was no practice! A good solid start from me, quite surprising really with a few bogeys and a pleasant birdie got me out in 39 though it was not good enough to stop LB from being 2 up at the turn. A determined effort over the first few holes on the back nine brings the match back to even but good consistent play from LB highlighted with a superb par3 on the 13th gets her back into the lead from where...

The building of the grandstands for the 150th Open Championship to be played in July have begun at the Old Course in St. Andrews. Here are a few pics of the seating being erected around the course. The main stand that runs along the right side of the 1st fairway. This a view of the 17th Road hole stand being built from the car park of the Old Course Hotel.  A golfer's view of the seating situated behind the green of the 17th Road hole on the Old Course. The photograph was taken about 90 yards from the front of the green.

It has been a long time coming...only 31 years... but I've finally broken 70 on a golf course for the second time. Played the round today at Clober GC based in Milngavie, Glasgow on a damp Sunday afternoon and surprised myself when we got into the clubhouse for our post round beer and totaled up the score. Boyne, 11th green at Clober GC  a couple of years ago. I knew I was playing pretty good but thought that the 7 strokes taken on the 7th hole and the sloppy bogey at the last had put me into the mid 70's. But after doing the sums on my playing partner Matt's card we then started on mine and both had to do a double take on the total. As the wonderful Scottish golf professional Heather MacRae says "If you can do it once, you can do it again!" God I hope Heather is correct and it does not take another 30+ years! Just for the golf geeks the card follows below, Out:4,4,3,4, 2 ,4, 7 ,4, 3 = 35  (14 putts) In:   6 ,4,3,3,4,3,3, 3 , 5 =  34  (15 putts)

The Ballot (tee times) for Wednesday's play upon the Old Course has been effected by the volcanic ash eruptions on Iceland due to airline cancellations, as can be seen with the amount of free spots available. There does not look to be any great improvement in the days ahead for people entering which means fewer caddie jobs to go round those registered caddies at St. Andrews. The other main golf courses with caddies, Carnoustie, Kingsbarns, Royal Troon, Turnberry etc will also be suffering. Ballot for the Old Course Wednesday 21st April: Time Player One Player Two Player Three Player Four Club Name 7.00 ELLIOT TIM 7.10 ARIAWA T SOPO T YENO H TARADA K TA ATIYO GC 7.20 LAURITSEN J MICHAEL J HOGAN F LAURITSEN T 7.30 7.40 KAKAR C KAKAR S LONG ASHTON GC 7.50 DECESARI P SOUBEYRAND P CHAOUAT D LE RAINCOI GC 8.00 GREENE P HARPHAM J DE PICCIOTTO M SA LIMA P ST ANDREWS UNI 8.10 ELLES W HENDERSON W ELLES J R & A GC 8.20 GOODMAN TP DRURY MH R & A GC 8.30 EDMUNDS F FOTHE...