Bullet-dodging is becoming a Vets speciality just now - we did it again yesterday. Driving down from Fraserburgh, I went through just about every kind of weather imaginable, starting with warm sunshine but, in several places further south, dark clouds and thunderous rain - you would have thought somebody had switched the lights off. It certainly didn't look promising, but, over lunch at the Eden clubhouse, it started brightening and we did, in the end, get round 17 holes dry until a couple of heavy cloudbursts caught us on the last hole. Those that had been out on the course in the morning weren't so lucky.
Incidentally, a little tip for anyone thinking of going to St. Andrews via the Tay Bridge - watch the road signs carefully in Dundee. They are changing all the approaches and several of us missed the correct turning yesterday, resulting in difficult and time-wasting attempts to get back on track.
Here's the team lining up on the first tee - five of us in appropriate attire, but yellow cards for dress code violations to Archie, Rob and Ken:
Keith has prior experience of knowing when to pull stomachs in and gave the command just before the camera clicked, but some ignored him, whilst others may have overdone the "chests out, stomachs in" command a little.
St. Andrews is famous for its bunkers and it wasn't long before Dan christened one of them:
This was at the 3rd hole and was one of Dan's more successful efforts, but, later on, as he tired, Les counted Dan taking 15 blows in one of them!
Talking of Les, he seems to be concentrating awfully hard on something as the water level in the Eden Estuary started to rise:
The decision to wear shorts was a good one - it was pretty warm. Here's Les playing his approach to the 7th as Peter and Dan look on:
In a break with tradition, we eschewed our usual visit to Whey Pat and instead headed for Market St. and the Central Bar, which was absolutely heaving with locals and tourists alike. Good choice of 7 (or more?) ales, with Edinburgh Gold getting the big thumbs-up from our crowd.
There we did the prize-giving. I got both Nearest the Pins and Ken got the Longest Drive. Archie was 3rd in the individual stableford with 30 points and Ken and I both finished on 32, with Ken having the better inward nine.
The team competition was very close. Despite having more stableford points in aggregate, Les, Peter, Dan and I lost out to Archie, Ken, Keith and Rob by just one point - 77 v 78 in the best 2 scores at each hole.
We then nipped across the road to the local Thai restaurant - Nahm-Jim (http://www.nahm-jim.co.uk/) for supper. It made a very pleasant change from the usual curry. "Thai-chie", as usual, did all the ordering for us. Here's the team photo after dinner:
Another great day out - and the Eden course is pretty good value (in its fullest sense) too at £40 per head - you get the unique atmosphere of St. Andrews, playing alongside those on the Old Course (£155 per head next year!) and a good variety of holes, including a few right out beside the Eden Estuary.
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