It may have been the first, but I don't think it will be the last time we take a trip to Tayside at this time of year. At this time last year, we had gone to Castle Stuart and it had initially been proposed that we have a once a year "luxury" outing - perhaps going to Trump this year.
Reality eventually kicked in when everyone saw how expensive Trump was going to be, so we scratched our collective heads and brainstormed up an idea to go to Monifieth instead, a course we had (shamefully) never played as a group. It didn't let us down - and the bargain offer of £100 for a 4-ball (or £30 per head) sealed the deal.
There had been dire forecasts of wet weather coming from the West and covering the whole of Scotland by 2pm - which was when we were due to tee off - but we had given ourselves a fighting chance by playing one of the most easterly courses possible, and we were pleasantly surprised to arrive at Monifieth in warm sunshine, prompting one of our group - Sharpy, of course - to don shorts.
The Medal course is a public links, like Montrose and St. Andrews, and there are a number of clubs affiliated to it. Each day they nominate a "host" club and yesterday it was the Grange, where we had bacon butties on the benches out front:
It was warm and a bit windy on the front nine. The greens were lovely although it took a little time to figure out the difference between putting downwind and putting back into the breeze. Conditions changed on the back nine - the wind went down and the weather front finally arrived, bringing rain with it, and literally putting a bit of a dampener on a fine day out.
Here's a few photos - firstly (most of) the team line-up at the 1st tee:
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| Ryan Sharp, Syd Freeman, Ian Sharp, Keith Gray, Ken Black, Les Gray, Tom Somerville, Malcolm Grigor and Ian Stewart |
We should have done a head count prior to taking this photo - there's only 9 of us here. Who's missing? Eventually, Gordon rolled up:
Young Ryan is a 4-handicapper from Murcar and is the nephew of Ian. Tom Somerville is a blast from the past - a friend of Les' from the very early days of the squash club - a 12 handicapper who plays at Muckhart. Here's Tom's smooth swing in action at the 1st:
Further on, at the 9th hole, Les appears to have lost a ball, as Tom wanders around apparently oblivious:
Les and Tom had to rush off after golf, but the rest of us convened for some fine ale and food at the nearby Milton Inn (http://www.themiltoninn.co.uk/):
Prize-winners on the day were:
| Nearest Pins | |
| 5th | Tom |
| 14th | Ryan |
| Longest Drive | |
| 18th | Syd |
| Stableford | |
| 1st. | Ian |
| 2nd. | Ryan |
Full individual scores were:
| 1 | Stewart, Ian | 41 |
| 2 | Sharp, Ryan | 37 |
| 3 | Freeman, Syd | 33 |
| 4 | Somerville, Tom | 33 |
| 5 | Grigor, Malcolm | 32 |
| 6 | Gray, Keith | 29 |
| 7 | Gray, Les | 28 |
| 8 | Moir, Gordon | 26 |
| 9 | Black, Ken | 23 |
| 10 | Sharp, Ian | 20 |
The team prize (best 2/3 scores) was won by Les, Tom & Malcolm with a score of 75.
Great day out - to be repeated next year - possibly at one of the many adjacent courses, like Panmure.
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