Final Group Photo

Back Row: Al, Jamie, Jeremy, Steve, DaveT, DaveH

Front Row: Andrew, Pete, MikeM, Chester, Gord, MikeG, Q

Final Tour Dinner at Little Italy in St. Andrews

After returning to St. Andrews from Carnoustie, and completing the washer toss tournament, we had our final tour dinner at the Little Italy restaurant.  Our second visit to this cozy Italian restaurant, the evening included great food, several toasts, the Canadian national anthem, and presentation of gifts to our tour organizers Q and Andrew.  Thanks guys for setting up a great tour.

Washer Toss Tournament Video

One of the highlights of the trip was the final night of the “1st International Washer Toss Tournament”.  The tournament started in Inverness at the Kingsmills Hotel back lawn and was concluded a few nights later in the street outside the front door of The Dunvegan in St. Andrews.  In the video you will see the street outside The Dunvegan was blocked off for construction which made for a perfect tournament site.

So how did the guys setup a washer toss tournament?  Well, the ever industrious Codfish carried the boards, screws, screwdriver, and coffee cans in his luggage to Scotland to build the washer toss boxes.

As seen in the video, the highlight of the final tournament night was the visit from the local police patrol…

Photos from The Dunvegan Hotel and Pub

Lindsay, Megan, Jess - Click on the image to jump to Flickr set for The Dunvegan

Sheena and the Canucks: Click the image to jump to the Flickr set for The Dunvegan

Final round 9 photos from Kingsbarns

I didn’t have any photos from Kingsbarns from Q’s camera so I captured a few stills from the video.  If any of the guys have photos from Kingsbarns they should upload them to the Kingsbarns “set” on Flickr.com.

Here is a captured image that is linked to the Kingsbarns “set” on Flickr.

Click on the image to jump to the Kingsbarns set on Flickr

Round 9: The final round – Kingsbarns

The final round of the tour, round 9, was held at the magnificent Kingsbarns near St. Andrews, on Tuesday, Oct 11, 2011.

Kingsbarns was opened in 2000 and recognized as the best new course in the world. That’s how good it is.  Views of the golf course and the North Sea are visible from many holes as can be seen in the video.

The weather was perfect.  Light winds, mostly sunshine all day with only a couple of short squalls of rain passing through.  Everyone enjoyed the course no matter what they shot on this final and glorious day.

Round 8 – Carnoustie Video

Here is a composite video of Round 8 from the Championship course at famed Carnoustie.  Carnoustie is the only course during the tour that is on the regular rotation of courses for The Open Championship.

The Open Championship at Carnoustie is known for many things including the “Hogan’s Alley”, which is the 6th hole with an out of bounds tight to the tee box and then all the way along the left edge of the fairway.  As our caddie Jim explained, with OB to the left and bunkers to the right, Hogan on four consecutive days hit a cut shot that started out of bounds and curved back into the fairway from which he was able to make birdie each day on the way to winning the Claret Jug.

Carnoustie is now perhaps more well known for the historic collapse by Jean van de Velde on the 72nd hole in the 1999 Open Championship.  With a 3 shot lead, he triple bogeyed the hole to fall into playoff which was lost.  Then in 2007, Sergio Garcia had a putt to win, which was missed and followed by a playoff that was lost.

In the video we see the foursome of Al, MikeG, Jeremy and DaveT, along with caddies Arthur and Jim who together have about 80 years of play experience at Carnoustie.

Round 7 – Castle Stuart – Ryder Cup Day 2 Video

Here is a composite video of  the action during Round 7 at Castle Stuart, which was Day 2 of the Ryder Cup competition between Team Canada and Team Scotland.

The weather on this day was decent, but the wind was up much more than Day 1.  Some rain squalls came through as well.  These conditions were reflected in the higher scores than Day 1 on Castle Stuart.

Day 2 consisted of single singles matches with a twosome out first in one match, followed by a threesome in the next match and then two foursomes with two matches each.

Team Scotland prevailed in a close competition:  Team Scotland 5.5 – Team Canada 4.5

Round 6 – Castle Stuart – Ryder Cup Day 1 Video

Here is a composite video of  the action during Round 6 which was the first of a two day Ryder Cup competition at Castle Stuart Golf Links near Inverness.

Castle Stuart is a modern links design with stunning views of the Moray Firth from most of the holes.

The weather on this day was fantastic.  Little or no winds and overcast, ideal playing conditions.  The scores on this round were the best so far on tour.

The first day of the Ryder Cup between Team Canada and Team Scotland had four matches on the board: a twosome singles match, a threesome singles match, and two foursomes playing fourball (team best ball) matches.

Sony Golf Shot Photos

The Golf Shot feature in the Sony Handycam produces both a movie and a still photo composite of the golf swing.  The stills have been loaded into Flickr.

Click on this Golf Shot image to jump to the Flickr set with all Golf Shot images.

Round 7 photos from Castle Stuart – Ryder Cup Day 2

Sunday, October 9, was Day 2 of the Ryder Cup matches between Team Canada and Team Scotland.  Team Scotland came out on top after a series of close matches.

A great way to end the matches was Castle Stuart allowing the guys to pose with the official Barclay’s Scottish Open trophy.

Click on the photo to jump to the Flickr set for Castle Stuart Ryder Cup Day 2

The players favourite courses on tour

On the last night of the tour following the presentation to the overall winner, a survey was made of all 13 players of their favourite courses during the tour.  Each player was provided a list of the 8 courses played and asked to rank them from 1 to 8 from most to least favourite.  Here are the results:

ScotlandGolfTour2011 Overall Champion – DaveH

The overall champion for ScotlandGolfTour2011 was determined by the average ranking of the Net score for each round.

1st place = DaveH (avg. rank = 3.1)

2nd place = Al (avg. rank = 3.8)

3rd place tie = Q & Jeremy (avg. rank = 4.2)

And here is a picture of the winner DaveH being presented the Dalwhinnie Trophy by Jack, the owner of the Dunvegan Hotel and Pub.

Overall Total Putting Results for ScotlandGolfTour2011

The final results for overall total putts on tour are…

Round 9 – Final round results – Kingsbarns

The results are in for round 9, the final round, at Kingsbarns.

How do I read this scorecard?

– The top table is the gross scores with totals as normal. The handicaps are shown next to the players’ names.  The table to the right of the top table has the Net score plus the total putts, number of 3 putts and number of holes scored 10+.  Everyone pays a £1 in to the Penalty Pot for 3 putts and holes 10+.

– The game of the day was Net Skins. Everyone’s handicap, relative to DaveT’s best 4 hdcp, is used to calculate the net score on every hole.  We are looking for Net Skins by who won a hole outright based on net score for the hole. There were 7 holes that were won: Steve won 2 holes, Gord won 2 holes, while Jeremy, Chester and Al each won 1 hole.  Note that Chester’s win on the signature #15 par 3 was won with a birdie net ZERO!

– The daily Net Ranking produced a 5-way tie between Chester, MikeG, Jeremy, MikeM and DaveT!

Round 6 photos from Castle Stuart – Ryder Cup Day 1

Saturday, October 8 was the first day of a two day Ryder Cup event at Castle Stuart near Inverness.  This new home of the Barclay’s Scotland Open is a beautiful golf course overlooking the Moray Firth.

Oh, and following Day 1 of the Ryder Cup, we traveled to nearby Loch Ness for a dinner overlooking the loch with the hopes of spotting Nessie.  Seems that Andrew got a little too close for comfort to Nessie.

Round 8 Results – Carnoustie

The results are in for round 8 at Carnoustie.

How do I read this scorecard?

– The top table is the gross scores with totals as normal. The handicaps are shown next to the players’ names.  The table to the right of the top table has the Net score plus the total putts, number of 3 putts and number of holes scored 10+.  Everyone pays a £1 in to the Penalty Pot for 3 putts and holes 10+.

– The top table also contains the Soothsayer game results.  Soothsayer simply asks the player to predict their score before the round and then we calculate the difference from the actual score.

– The big game of the day was CHICAGO.  It is based on Net scores.  The middle table contains the calculated Net scores based on handicaps relative to DaveT’s low handicap of 4.  The CHICAGO table contains the calculated points:  1 for net bogey, 2 for a net par, 4 for a net birdie and 8 for a net eagle.

Round 6 & 7 Ryder Cup results from Castle Stuart

Results are in from Saturday and Sunday’s rounds 6 & 7 from the Castle Stuart Golf Links near Inverness.

The two rounds at Castle Stuart were organized as a Ryder Cup style event.  Two team captains were selected:  DaveH and MikeG.  The captains then selected players for their teams which produced a team with six and the other with seven players.  The captains then flipped a coin to name their team “Canada” or “Scotland” to match the theme of the logo on the tour uniform shirts.

Canada: MikeG, Jeremy, Steve, DaveT, Gord, and Al.

Scotland: DaveH, Q, MikeM, Jamie, Chester, Pete, and Andrew.

All scoring was corrected with handicap within the match.

Day 1 of the competition consisted of 4 matches: 2 singles matches and 2 fourball matches.  One singles match as normal and the second singles match contained three players with two from the Scotland team playing their best ball against the Canada player.  This was the best way to deal with the odd number of 13 players.  The other two matches were fourball matches with a pair of players from each team using their best ball in a match against a pair from the opposite team.

Here are the results from Day 1…

Round 6 Results - Castle Stuart Day 1 (1of2)

Round 6 Results - Castle Stuart Day 1 (2of2)

Day 2 of the Ryder Cup at Castle Stuart consisted of six singles matches.  One of the matches again contained three players with two from the Scotland team playing their best ball against the Canada player.  The other five matches were head to head.

Here are the results from Day 2…

Round 7 Results - Castle Stuart Day 2 (1of2)

Round 7 Results - Castle Stuart Day 2 (2of2)

SCOTLAND 5.5  – CANADA 4.5

SCOTLAND WINS!

The view from Carnoustie Hotel window

Today we completed our two day Ryder Cup competition at the Castle Stuart Golf Links near Inverness.  More on those two rounds to come later.

We drove down south again this afternoon to Carnoustie and checked into the hotel in the early evening just before sundown.  This is what I found when I opened the window.  Golfers who follow The Open Championship will remember what happened on that 18th hole on Sunday in 1999 to Jean Van de Velde, and Sergio Garcia in 2007.

Round 5: The Royal Dornoch Golf Club Video

Here is a composite video of  the action during Round 5 at the The Royal Dornoch Golf Club, in the town of Dornoch, which is about 45 minutes north of Inverness, Friday, Oct 7th.

Royal Dornoch is one of the most celebrated links courses in the world and the whole gang was anxious to see it and test their game against it.  Well, it certainly met or exceeded everyone’s expectations.  A beautiful looking golf course from every vantage point.  And very tough to play.  Every hole has it own unique character and interesting features.

The weather on this day was the best so far on the tour.  Light clouds and sunshine, cool but not cold temperature and no rain.  Most importantly, the winds were very light which made the course much more playable than it would have been.  In high winds like we had in St. Andrews it would have been a slaughter.

A nice touch from the club is each day they raise flags on the flag poles next to the 1st tee for the countries that will be visiting the club that day.  The Canadian flag was flying as we started and we were told the Canadian flag is flying there most every day.

Pete and Chester have fun in this video with some creative commentary about their day as we stood on the 18th tee looking back down the golf course.  And Jamie’s sentiments at the end sum up the day very nicely.

Round 5 Results – Royal Dornoch Golf Club

Results are in from Friday’s Round 5 at the Royal Dornoch Golf Club.

How do I read this scorecard?

– The top table is the gross scores with total as normal. The handicaps are shown next to the players’ names.  The table to the right of the top table has the Net score plus the total putts, number of 3 putts and number of holes scored 10+.  Everyone pays a £1 in to the Penalty Pot for 3 putts and holes 10+.

– The big game of the day was FLAGS.  All players were given a Canadian flag with the name on it and a number. The number was equal to the course par of 70 plus 66% of their handicap.  Each player was instructed to stick the flag in the ground when they reached the shot that was written on the flag.  The fun is to see who has to put their flag in the ground first, and then the winner is who puts their flag in the ground closest to the end of the round.  There was a tie in FLAGS with MikeM and DaveT both holing out on the 16th green exactly with their number.

Legend: Eagle = Dark Green, Birdie = Light Green, Par = White, Bogey = Yellow, DBogey = Orange, Other = Brown.

Heh Eddie, you’re up on the 1st tee at Dornoch!

A special message for Ed B. from the starter on the 1st tee at Royal Dornoch Golf club.

Round 5 photos from the Royal Dornoch Golf Club

The Royal Dornoch Golf Club was expected by many to be the highlight of the trip up to this point.  It did not disappoint.  The weather could not have been better.  Relatively light winds and some sunshine.  The golf course is almost beyond description for its natural beauty of the holes, the views of the entire course and across the Dornoch Firth.

The team is getting instructions from the starter at Royal Dornoch

Round 4 photos from The Nairn Golf Club

The ScotlandGolfTour2011 team is seen here departing The Dunvegan in St. Andrews on Thursday morning, Oct 6, for the road trip north to the Nairn Golf Club and Inverness.  Sheena, the owner of hotel, joined us for the picture.

Click on the image to jump to the set of photos on Flickr from the day.

ScotlandGolfTour2011 and Sheena from The Dunvegan. Click the image to jump to a set of pictures from Nairn.

Round 3 Photos from The New Course

Here is a collection of photos from Round 3 on The New Course, St. Andrews, from Wednesday, Oct 5th.  Click on the image to jump to the set of photos on Flickr.

On the 1st tee of The New Course, St. Andrews. Click on image to jump to Flickr set for these pictures.