Slightly controversially, and, in a break with long established tradition, the leaders went out first on Monday morning. Surprisingly, this move was apparently instigated by those at the lower end of yesterday's scoring, who felt they didn't want to hold up the leaders - well, certainly not Syd, anyway!
It was a fine bright morning and Bill, Ian and I all donned shorts for the morning round at Boat of Garten. Here's a loose aggregation of bodies gathering round the first tee:
I had the luck/foresight to take a shot of Malcolm teeing off at the 6th hole - The Avenue, stroke index 1 - and he didn't disappoint, unleashing a mighty drive down the middle, which I measured at 275 yards:
Yes - and before you ask, Malcolm did get his 6 OK!
At the 10th hole, Peter set his trolley off towards the 11th tee as he headed off to the green. On and on it rumbled until it demolished one of the signs:
I made a bad start to my round and was but a mere spectator as Syd, Malcolm and Peter battled it out for the trophy. Syd was always ahead, but Malcolm was keeping him in sight in case of error, and Peter was a constant danger - especially with all the strokes he had, as Syd kept commenting.
Peter birdied the 15th and then Malcolm chipped in for an unlikely 2 at the 16th - just after Syd had had back to back bogeys - and when we stood on the 17th tee, Malcolm calculated that Syd was just 2 points ahead of Peter, with Malcolm a further 2 points behind.
Peter had a relatively short putt at the 17th to apparently narrow the gap to just one point, but just missed it, but then he sliced his drive at the 18th and got into some trouble from which he never recovered. Malcolm boomed out another monster drive - which turned out to be the Longest Drive - but Syd kept his nerve to get his four, despite finding the greenside bunker, and, despite also getting his par, Malcolm had to settle for 2nd place overall.
It transpired that Malcolm's arithmetic was slightly suspect and he had been a lot closer to Syd than he had given himself credit for - or, perhaps, was willing to admit. The final scores on Monday were:
- Freeman 37
- Grigor 37
- Street 35
- Taylor 31
- Bhagrath 30
- Corbett 29
- Cook 28
- Stewart 27
- Simpson 27
- McRae 25
- Gray K 25
- Whyman 24
Nearest the Pins were won by Syd and Dick, and the team prize went to the leading four of Freeman, Grigor, Street and Stewart.
The overall winner of the 51st staging of the event since the trophy was introduced in 1986 - but only the 50th winner (one rained off) - was Syd, for the 9th time. It took him until his retirement in 1999 to pick up his first win, but since then, he's won it on more than one-third of the times that we've played it - 9 out of the last 25.
Here's the final positions:
- Freeman 76
- Grigor 74
- Street 71
- Corbett 65
- Stewart 63
- Cook 60
- Taylor 58
- Whyman 58
- Gray K 56
- Bhagrath 54
- McRae 51
- Simpson 46
Naturally, Syd took the Gross prize too, with 64 points, followed by Malcolm with 56, and me with 43. Full details already posted on the Yahoo site.
All that was left to do then was for Keith to present the trophy to Syd, and for Syd, in return, to invite us all back to the Boat Inn, Aboyne for the celebratory pint:
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| KAG presents trophy to Syd, whilst Dick apparently dozes in the background. |
Syd will be in touch shortly with September's arrangements, but the 52nd official outing will be held on Sunday/Monday 4th/5th September, 2011 - all welcome - the more, the merrier. Get the date in your diaries now.
Just when exactly does Syd get too old to keep winning? He's 72 now and apparently getting better than ever. He now holds the Iberian Cup, Desert Classic and Boat of Garten trophies - the last three Majors we've played. The good news for the rest of us is that he's not apparently planning a clean sweep of Majors as he appears to be leaving the Summer Quaich to some of the rest of us! Whoops - maybe I shouldn't have said that - there's still 17 weeks left in the Quaich - he could still do it!
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