(Partial) Summer Tour History

The Summer Tour to Seahorses this week was the 25^th. The event started in 1999 when 10 of us left Banchory to hook up again with fellow squash club member Dan Corbett who was working in Ayr at the time. We played Ayr Belleisle, one of the Troon courses (Darley?) and one other I can’t remember. It was an absolute scorcher of a weekend – we were staying at the Chestnuts Hotel which had a fine choice of real ales available.

We decided to make this an annual event and the following year 7 of us headed north and again played 3 courses, including Tain and Golspie. Here we are at the latter course - Syd either not present or taking the photo:

l-r: Peter Street, John Anderson, Bill Miller, Terry Edmonds, Ian Stewart & Jas Bhagrath

It was a very damp trip but our hotel had agreed to put a Pin of ale (organised by Jas) on the bar for us. We must have had a few, because, after dinner, we went out to the hotel’s putting green and had a mini competition in the rain. This was the infamous occasion when Syd stumbled, landing flat on his back in what, in his own words, was the “blower fled”!

The winners of these first two events are, regrettably, unknown - I'm not even sure we had yet decided to have an overall winner.

By 2001, however, it had definitely become an overall competitive event as 7 of us again travelled to see Dan, who had now moved to Linlithgow, where we stayed. We played there and also at Pitreavie in Dunfermline plus one other.  Drinks at the Four Marys:

The following year just 4 of us flew over to Dublin to play Portmarnock's relatively new 2nd course plus Corrstown and one other. Again, it was a wet weekend but we all enjoyed the Oyster Stout at the Porterhouse. Here we are at lunch at Corrstown with the sun shining for a change:

In 2003, for the 2nd year in a row, there was a disappointing turnout of just 4 heading to East Kilbride. Would the Summer Tour remain viable with such low numbers? The response came the following year with a long distance trip to the West Country where two former Banchory Squash Club members - Bob Cooper and John Davies - now resided - in Ledbury and Malvern respectively. This was when the Summer Tour really took off - Bob Cooper even donated a trophy which helped the event to eventually be elevated to BSV "Majors" status.

A total of 11 played Bob's home course of Ross-on-Wye and John's Worcester course plus a trip over the border in to Wales to play Rolls of Monmouth (Rolls as in Rolls Royce):

l-r: Syd Freeman, Archie Cook, Dave Edwards, Dan Corbett, John Davies, Peter Street, George Cox, Bill Miller, Jas Bhagrath, Ian Stewart & Bob Cooper

We continued our travels in 2005 with the slightly shorter trip to Cockermouth, but in 2006 we made an even longer journey - by plane this time - to play at another former Squash Club member, George Cox's home course of Seaford in East Sussex - a jacket and tie job:

l-r: George Cox, Ian Stewart, Dan Corbett, Peter Street, Syd Freeman, Dave Edwards, Archie Cook, Bob Cooper, Jas Bhagrath, Bill Miller & John Davies

We made the first of 7 visits to Slaley Hall in 2007, but, in 2008 it was another plane journey - to Cornwall this time. Trevose Golf and Country Club was where we stayed and played but it was our wettest Tour ever - we only managed one full round at St Enodoc. On the final day it was so wet and windy that only one of our group of 10 wanted to play - Peter Street was the likely overall winner but he needed a few more points to seal the deal - and I, reluctantly, agreed to play a few holes with him and mark his card.

We missed out on 2020 due to Covid but otherwise the event has gone from strength to strength since then. This year at Seahouses brought the highest ever attendance of 16 - here's the full list in order of attendees:

(Note the obvious error/omission for the 2 Aberlady trips that I don't have the full information for).

As mentioned above, Slaley Hall has been visited most (7 times) with Aberlady and East Kilbride 2 each. All others were single visits.

A total of 40 have now taken part in the Summer Tour - Jim Fowler being the latest to make his debut this year. Here are those names with the numbers of appearances to date:

Harry's win yesterday was his 2nd in just 6 appearances. Ian Dring has 3 wins from 8 appearances. These two are also the only ones with single figure handicaps and, at the ages of 67 and 68 respectively have to be amongst the favourites to add to their number of wins. Here's the full list of recorded winners to date: