Finally we all sat down to dinner, and these were the scenes during the meal and afterwards when the prizes were being awarded:
Nice to see Irene Page, Linda Edmonds and Dave and Doris Edwards all coming along to join us.
The youngest member of the party was Ian McRae's son, Craig:
Janice Fulford and Raymond Orr got the nearest the pin prizes and Harry Salter won the longest drive. The overall result of the Challenge was in doubt until late on. The Rest of the World got off to an excellent start, winning the top match by 4 holes. Not only did Syd have a hole in one at the 2nd, but he also birdied 3 in a row - 14/15/16 - the first two with outrageous putts for birdie halves. When he wasn't doing that, Raymond came in. Gordon and I felt we'd been mugged and we were secretly delighted to contain Syd and Raymond to just a 4 hole deficit - it could have been a lot worse.
Les and Ian Sharp brought Scotland back in it with a good 2 hole victory over Harry and Ian Dring, but the USA/Ireland team easily beat the Scots in the Happy Families match, so, after 3 matches, RoW had a healthy 6 hole lead.
Match 4 brought a slightly surprising margin of victory for Scotland as the McRae/Sharp mixed team overcame RoW's Riches/Fulford by 5 holes, bringing Scotland to within a point overall.
Jackie - although batting for the other side - didn't fare much better than her husband in Match 5 - she and her partner John McWhinnie went down by a shock 4 hole margin to Rob Pollard and Julie Dring. RoW were now 5 holes up with only 2 matches to come in.
Jack and Dan, reliable as ever, did the business over Steve and John M., and their 2 hole win reduced Scotland's overall deficit to 3 holes. Meanwhile, the final match was back out on the course finishing off their last 2 holes.
The Scotland team had a 3 hole lead over RoW at the Doo'cot in the final (and only) all-Ladies fourball, but, at that time, the match in front of them hadn't finished and there were lots of frowns on Scottish brows in the clubhouse as the prospect of their first ever defeat in the 7 year history of the event loomed.
In the end, Angela and Joan won both the 17th and 18th holes over Anna and Lynda to record a 5 hole win, and give Scotland victory by 14 holes to 12 - but it had been a very close-run thing. Scotland did win 4 of the 7 matches, so I suppose the overall result was validated.
I personally thought the introduction of Mixed and Ladies' matches for the first time was a winner, although I know not everyone will agree. If it's any consolation to the losers, the men only matches finished 4 holes all, with Scotland winning two of the three matches.
All that was left was the traditional winning team photo:
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