The Load Out Begins

 The party is over..... but what a party it's been.

Yesterday was the final day of golf, a seemingly fine day with one small challenge contained therein, forecast winds of 24 m.p.h., with gusts into the 30's.  And we find ourselves on the Craighead, the far more difficult of the two courses, one featuring tiny little greens.  

We've been passing this church every trip to Crail, so caught this from the moving vehicle:

Those massive windows were, disappointingly, not stained glass, but loved the graveyard and quite the piece of property.  One could see it repurposed as a links clubhouse, no?  

How windy was it?  You make the call, but make sure your audio is on:

It appears that Blogger will not allow me access to the most basic of iPhone videos, so I'm pretty exasperated.  What you're missing is long fescue whipping in the wind, but the whole point of taking the video was for you to hear it....

The opening tee shot is quite difficult, and when my ball fortuitously ended up here, I thought maybe we'd have ourselves a day.  Alas, I was misinformed.

You may not be able to make it out, but it found grass after trundling through two bunkers.

The golf wasn't actually half-bad when one considers the degree of difficulty, not least that which was in front of us.  As we drove into the Crail carpark, we saw the bus in the auxiliary carpark, as well a minyan on the first tee, meaning that the visitors were ahead of us.  It turned out to be four groups that, despite having forecaddies, played at a pace akin to....well, who am I kidding, there was no pace to their play.  But to make up for it, they were loud enough to be heard in St. Andrews....

Amusingly, they were also bloody idiots and not shy about exhibiting that trait.  Several time we saw one or the other walking back to retrieve clubs left behind, at least until they got the idea of using the caddie for that purpose.  We had quite the scene on No. 6, while we were playing up the Par-5 and the players were on the 7th tee, their caddie was walking back towards and past us, then we saw him circling a patch of long fescue searching in vain for something.  I just hope they were generous with the caddie, because it's hard to forecaddie well when you're on a wild goose chase behind the group that's behind your players.

If I had any lingering illusions about the day, they didn't survive contact with the twelfth hole.  On that short Par-4, my 3-hybrid tee shot drew around the corner perfectly, leaving me a mere 36 yards to the front of the green.  It's the firmest green on the course, and I nudged a wedge that landed just short of the green, trickling on and feeding to the pin.... Or at least it would have, had it not instead alit on John's ball, kicking hard right and into the greenside bunker.  

You'll note the absence of pictures, the camera remaining safely out of the wind all day.  Obviously a taxing day for all, though the some commendable golf was played.  Both ladies made par at the tricky 2nd which, while impressive, is a bit early to peak.  I may have cured my case of Triskaidekaphobia, hitting a controlled 8-iron that settled on the fringe at the front left of the green.   I just have to remember to underclub, would someone remind me of that in mid-July 2025?

We had blown past the four-hour mark and, while playing No. 15, John indicated that he had lost his will to live.  My own had been lost at No. 12, so no worries there, mate.  No 15 is a long Par-5, the second shot of which plays over Dane's Dyke, the ancient stone wall that Gil Hanse incorporated into the routing (though this side of the wall is sodded, and balls will run over).  I had push my drive dangerously close to a gorse bush, and couldn't advance my second more than 25 yards or so.  Finding myself some 246 yards from the front of the green, unable to see the green and not caring a whole lot for those in front, I crushed a three wood that I ultimately found in the middle of the green.  Having decided at that point to walk in, I just picked it up in the knowledge that there was no reason to ruin the feel of that shot with the inevitable 3-jack.

Our day wound down here:

That's Seafood Ristorante, one of a series of restaurant recommendations helpfully provided by friend-of-the-blog Mark W.  It's located just past the R&A clubhouse and the British Golf Museum, in an area known as The Scores.  The building is a bit modern, but hard to quibble with the location:

And you'll not find four people that were happier with their meals, so a proper rousing coda to our time with our friends.  And that list of restaurants will be transferred from my 2024 Scotland file to the 2025 version thereof.

Elsie and John are packing up as I type, and will depart for home, stopping on their way to pick up grandson Sebastian.  We will get ourselves sorted and we head for the airport tomorrow.

This will conclude Scotland blogging for 2024.  Regular blogging will resume at a yet-to-be-determined date, but thanks to all for reading along with us.