IC day 5

Another nice warm, sunny day on our return to Santa Maria today, a course we'd last played in 2000. Before that, however, we had dinner last night just outside the marina at Puerto Banus, where the sun was setting and we had a fine view of distant Gibraltar:

After dinner, some of us decided to take a stroll round the Port, for old times' sake, but it was strangely quiet so we headed back to the Horseshoe Inn to watch the Man U game.

Most of us will remember the first time we played Santa Maria back in 1998. The first tee shot then seemed to be terrifying, over a chunk of water. We all particularly remember Bill Miller pacing up and down in a cold sweat, but here's his buddy Peter teeing off today:

I won't say where his ball ended up.

Generally, it's a course that doesn't beat you up too much and scores were a little better today, with 4 players in the 30's, the best of which by far was John with 35 - the nearest anyone's had to playing to their handicap this week. It was John's second win of the week and Dick presented him with another prize ball:

That puts John in to a very healthy lead overall with just one day's play left:

Davies, John	117
Bhagrath, Jas	111
Stewart, Ian	110
Grigor, Malcolm	105
Taylor, Dick	102
Freeman, Syd	100
Salter, Harry	99
Page, Ken	86
Street, Peter	86

The Medium Handicappers have a good lead, sitting on 12 and a half points, with the Low Handicappers 2 points behind.

The Eclectic has changed a little:

Davies, John	48
Stewart, Ian	47
Bhagrath, Jas	46
Grigor, Malcolm	45
Salter, Harry	45
Taylor, Dick	43
Page, Ken	42
Street, Peter	40
Freeman, Syd	40

La Quinta tomorrow.