Ch-Ch-Changes - Auld Grey Toon Edition

Good Morning from Pittenweem.  The last morning on which we will awaken in beloved Pittenweem, though that's a rather sudden development.

Bifurcation is a term of art in our game lately, so we scheduled a bifurcated vacation, with a week in St. Andrews as a means of mixing it up a bit.  The odd thing was that the first house had a Saturday check-in, with the St. Andrews house available Friday afternoon.  That obviously limits our two weeks to thirteen nights, but provided additional flexibility for the move North (given the six-hour gap between check-out and check-in times).

The plan, as of 4:09 Thursday was as follows:

1. Golf Friday on the Craighead;
2. Spend Friday night in Pittenweem;
3. Use Saturday for a leisurely move to St. Andrews, and;
4. Play Sunday on the Balcomie.

Then at 4:10 p.m. this arrives:

ARE YOU READY FOR YOUR ST ANDREWS LINKS EXPERIENCE?

 

Lead Golfer:

Scott Simpson
 

Date of play:
 

03/08/2024

Old Course tee time:

14:50

Booking reference:

 

B060C3C

 

Congratulations on securing your upcoming Old Course tee time via the ballot! We look forward to welcoming you to the Home of Golf and hope you enjoy following in the footsteps of the greats.

Ummmm, well, if you insist..... Technically, I've been ready since 2019, but that's not important now.

In rapid succession, Friday golf was cancelled and we will use today for said leisurely move, so that will arise tomorrow morning in St. Andrews.  The mid-afternoon time would have allowed us to maintain those existing plans, but it would have been four straight days of golf for your humble blogger, and the body was already revolting during the second straight round yesterday.  

I wish I had the count of our ballot entries submitted from 2022 through the present, because it was quite the losing streak, especially after hearing several anecdotes of hitting it on the second go.  The tee time isn't optimal, for sure, though the photographer in me thinks that the late afternoon light as we finish might be of interest.  As is the weather forecast, mid-60's temps, but 14mph winds gusting to 24 mph.....Hmmmmm, better score well on that outbound nine.

We've been hearing some chatter of folks gaming the Daily Ballot, and the results page certainly lends credence thereto.  All those R&A, New Club, St. Andrews GC and St. Regulus Ladies Club are organizations that have tee times allocated as per longstanding arrangements, yet they seem to be glomming so many of the spots available to civilians.  That said, we've got a time, so go ahead and close the gate behind us.

The weather has been spectacular, but the one negative to be found lands squarely on Monday, when we're scheduled to play the Balcomie with Elsie and John.  We'll just have to keep our eyes on it, especially since a scheduled off-day on Tuesday might offer options.  

I played Craighead yesterday with Ross, notable for the fact that the camera never left the golf bag.  We've spoken at length about pace-of-play issues on the Balcomie, but Wednesday's quick-moving progress on the Balcomie was followed by the slowest day ever on the Craighead, one in which had way too much time to exchange pleasantries with the groups ahead and behind us.  The golf wasn't brilliant from either of us, though there were those moments, including two late birdies from Ross.

Pittenweem is mobilizing for their Arts Festival, our sign to get the heck out of Dodge.  Presumably in connection, this showed up on the promenade:

Oh, those crazy artists, ignoring for the moment that I married one of them.

That brings the curtain down on our Pittenweem blogging.  See you from St. Andrews.