The outings come thick and fast at this time of year - and it was another good, low-budget one, played in decent dry, if a little cool, conditions at Balmoral last night.
The event started in 2001 and the first one was put together by Ian Dring, with the assistance of our host, Gary Coutts. Ian played in the first 4 events but then started his world-wide travels and hasn't been available since 2004, but rumour hath it that he might be looking to make a come-back next year.
Gary has obviously been an ever-present and I am the only other one who has played in all 13 events to date. Over the years there have been 6 other Balmoral members helping Gary out to host the outing - the most regular being Norrie Thain, who has now appeared on 7 occasions. Others have been the near-legendary, but now sadly deceased Ben Fernie, Arthur, Duncan, Peter, and, last night for the first time, Brian Lees, who joined Gary and Norrie to give us the opportunity to have 3 groups for the first time ever.
Present incumbents and previous attendees are always invited first and the invitation this year was snapped up by 7 of us, which meant we would have to expand the number of groups from the normal 2 to 3, and, having done this, it afforded additional spaces for 2 former squash players of Gary's acquaintance who hadn't been along before - Hugh and Keith.
We all made it to the gates of Balmoral not long after 5:30 pm, although Keith's car had to do a last minute detour in Aboyne to pick up the birthday cake that Malcolm's wife had baked for the occasion. Entering by the front gates, we got our boots on and posed for the usual team photo on the first tee:
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| Ian Stewart, Norrie Thain, Hugh Riches, Peter Street, Les Gray, Dick Taylor, Malcolm Grigor, Keith Gray, Bill Miller, Gary Coutts, Brian Lees & Jas Bhagrath |
The greens were pretty dodgy but the rest of the course looked good, but you had to keep your ball out of the rough - or it was a goner. The scenery is lovely - Hugh took this photo late on in the evening, looking down the 16th fairway:
Scoring was pretty modest - with one exception. We discovered Brian Lees was the current Balmoral club champion and he finished miles ahead of everyone else, with a fine score of 39 points, of which 23 came on the back nine. Keith got 2nd place with 33 points and Gary and Bill won the Nearest the Pin prizes, with me winning the Longest Drive.
The team competition - best 3 stableford scores at each hole to count - was, not surprisingly, won by Brian and Keith's team, with Dick and Bill being very grateful to their colleagues for the prize balls they won.
Hugh had been at a corporate day at Balmoral recently and had received a Balmoral hat, which he donated as a prize, with the original intention being to award it to the winner. However, as our winner was a Balmoral member, we did a quick role reversal and, instead decided to award it to the evening's D.o.D.:
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| Malcolm looks on gratefully - another bullet dodged - as Les dons the "Dunce's Cap" |
Peter provided the catering again - courtesy of Sainsbury's - and we got stuck in to a fine feast and some ales, with Gary pouring drams of Bowmore as chasers. Of course, we also had the birthday cake to cut this year:
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| Winner Brian Lees looks on as Malcolm cuts his cake |
Brian became the 8th person to win the outing. Norrie Thain and I each have 3 wins to our name, and Gary Coutts has won twice, with solos from Ian D, Les, Malcolm & Jas.
We managed with 12 last night, but that's about the limit in Balmoral's cosy little clubhouse, so, with apologies to others who have expressed their desire to come along when a vacancy presents itself, I'm afraid it looks like a case of dead men's shoes - hopefully not literally.
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