We left Karen’s at about 9:30 to go 20 miles to Fife, where the atmosphere will be even more golf central. While East Lothian is called the Golf Coast, Fife is considered The Home of Golf, because of St. Andrews and all the neighboring courses.

Scottish for today: The Firth of Forth is the body of water separating Fife from Lothian, but the special thing is the new bridge, the fourth bridge because the firth bridge is no longer needed. (Said many times after having a few.)

Above is an example of the ancient walls crisscrossing through the Crail courses. The bench on the other side of this wall is at the tee box for another hole. The body of water is the North Sea.

This is a view down from the restaurant showing the 15 th closest to the water, the 16th going uphill over that big patch of gorse, the 17th where the four bunkers are right in the middle, and the 18th, green in the middle right.  It’s quite a view. Today’s game was played in heavy rain all day, no break.  We all stayed dry inside our waterproofs, but it was tough going. As you can see, there weren’t many people on the course— the smart ones were at the bar, watching golf!

And Johnny’s magnificent swing in action!

After our game, we headed back to The Golf Hotel.  Yes, that really is the name of it!  It’s the place where the Crail Golfing Society was formed, 300 years ago.  The building acts every bit of 300 years old. There are small staircases everywhere, two bars, interesting memorabilia all over the walls, narrow passages, odd angled door-frames, and two bars!  And just for added fun, the floors creak with every step! 

But the food is good and the people—very colorful! We even met a reporter (Bernie McBride) who knew the fellow we played with last year in Northern Ireland. Leo Diamond is the team captain at Portstewart. We met him on our first day and played a few holes with him. He then invited us for dinner at the Cloud. Two days later, we played together again at the big course and treated him to dinner.  And this guy knew him!  Small world in this crazy little hotel

Tomorrow (Monday, August 12th) is the Old Course at Saint Andrews.  If you want to watch us tee off, check out the webcam link below.  We’ll be going out close to 3:50 local time, west coast 7:50 am.  We’ll have caddies and a guest, so it will be a big party. John and Johnny will be in white and gray caps, all black outerwear. I’ll be wearing a white hat and colorful skirt!

Here’s the link:  https://www.standrews.com/Play/Links-webcam