Boat of Garten LXXV

Many thanks to Rob for his excellent organisation and congrats to Ian D on his win at this week's Boat of Garten outing. Rob has already circulated details of the event but I'll include his team selfie at Boat of Garten on Monday here for the blog record:

Here's the presentation of the trophy to Ian:

The full pecking order from the event shows:

Malcolm and John M, of course, only played the one round at Boat of Garten.

A few more photos I took:

Rob and I on the 14th tee at Boat of Garten, backdropped by the Cairngorms

Another selfie at the 15th green. Harry putts, Nigel bends and Rob watches while I waited patiently after recording yet another blob!

Hugh and Rob pose as Twa Auld Mannies at the 7th tee at Grantown yesterday

It's almost 40 years now since our group first went to Boat of Garten in September, 1984. That outing and the subsequent two in 1985 don't appear in the official stats which go back to the first time the trophy was awarded in May, 1986, but, for the record, the first 3 pre-trophy winners were Dick Taylor, Bill Miller and Bill Craven.

So officially this was our 75th outing in the 39th year since the trophy started. It could have been 77 had Covid not intervened in May, 2020 and had we not been rained off in September, 1992 - amazingly, the only time this has ever happened (to date!)

My records of the winning scores only go back to 2004, by which time we had decided that 36 holes at Boat of Garten on the Monday, after golf and a boozy evening on the Sunday, was becoming too much for us and we reverted to the current format of just 2 scoring rounds - one each day.

We only played one round in May 2021 when Ken B won with a very respectable 36 points, but the lowest 36 hole winning total since 2004 was Dan's 62 points in May, 2007. Syd won in May, 2023 with 63 points and this year's total of 64 was the 3rd lowest - shared now by Ian D, Jas (May, 2012) and Harry (Sep, 2017). Conversely, the highest points total (79) also came from Ian D in September, 2015.

Ian D now joins the ranks of multiple winners. Our now 85 year old elder statesman remains amazingly competitive and it will be some time - if ever - before anyone overtakes him at the top of the all-time leader board:

Current regulars yet to get their name on the esteemed trophy include Hugh, Nigel and John M.