After Thursday's soaking in Q13, and with heavy showers and dark clouds swarming round Deeside, we wondered whether it might be a case of Midsummer Madness as we headed west to Ballater. In the event, we needn't have worried - the afternoon was delightful and, barring a couple of very brief light showers, the Midsummer Outing was played in ideal conditions in beautiful surroundings, on a course in excellent condition. The most immediate contrast from Banchory was the obvious springiness in the fairways, but I guess that's at least partly due to the relative volume of traffic.
We had 2 enforced late withdrawals - for differing and unavoidable reasons, both Malcolm and Les had to pull out. This spoiled the previously perfect symmetry of the event, which had been looking like three fourballs, so we had to quickly re-think the team competition. Originally this was to be the best 3 stableford scores at each hole, but we had to cut this back to the best 2 at each hole, but this still left the one remaining 4 man team with a huge advantage.
Prizes on the day went mostly to me - I got both nearest the pins and also won the individual stableford, and, with the two Kens as partners, very nearly won the team competition too. Dick got the longest drive and also individual 2nd place, whilst Ken P was 3rd.
The team scores were very close - the first team out (Dick, Jack & Ian McR) scored 82 points, whilst me and the Kens shot one better. We fully expected these scores would be trounced out of sight by the third team of Harry, Archie, Rob and Peter, but, in the end, they only managed to beat us by one point, despite having the extra man. There was much muttering about factoring their score by one quarter, but retrospective rule changing would not have gone down well, and we just left the scores as they were.
Ballater was excellent, and whilst we enjoyed last year's Midsummer Outing at Edzell, we all agreed (I think!) that the premium of £15 per head charged at Edzell wasn't worth it, and Ballater was, overall, a better experience.
Here's the individual scores:
- Stewart, Ian 39
- Taylor, Dick 38
- Page, Ken 36
- Cook, Archie 34
- McRae, Ian 33
- Salter, Harry 32
- Simpson, Jack 31
- Black, Ken 30
- Street, Peter 30
- Pollard, Rob 26
The teams, in order of play:
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