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Scotland on my Mind by Dan King Friday June 14th
Mariott Dalmahoy Hotel and Country Club (East Course) |
Another beautiful day in paradise. Scotland is starting to feel more and more like a vacation to Maui (better golf though).
Today is our Ryder Cup day. This an event set up over the Internet
when Alex Webster heard the 4 of us were coming to Scotland. We figured it
would be fun to have a friendly competition between the 4 of us
yanks vs. Alex Webster
Dalmahoy has the look and feel of numerous American resorts. There
is even a fleet of electric golf carts, but thankfully no cart
paths. It's routing is mostly south to north and north to south
on the Front-9 with a little more east to west and west to east
on the back-9. The strength of the course was 3 excellent par-3s.
We played four-ball matches. Dick Gundersen and I in the lead
group vs. Alex and his friend Alastair Meekin a fellow Hewlett
Packard employee. he second group was Darla Cowden and Mike
Smyth representing the U.S. vs. George Lunn
The matches were close. I mostly just rode Dick Gunderson's
back during our four-ball. However, I did contribute on a
few critical holes. During out match neither side got more
than 1-up with the match going back and forth. A par on the
difficult #14 (Braids Brawest) a Par-4 of 449 yards gave us
the lead that we held onto until the finish winning 1-up.
In the other match the U.S. got up as high as 4-up at the
turn, but a late strong charge by Scotland's George Lunn resulted
in a halved match which was good enough for a U.S. victory.
For the victory the hosts had to buy the first round of drinks.
The highlight of the day was sitting around after the round
sharing a few pints and swapping golf stories between the groups.
It was a very pleasant day all around. And most of us left the course
with new sun-tans.
After the round, a few pints with our friends, a little bit of
dinner we decided to get in a few more holes. Around 8 o'clock
we arrived at Gullane wanted to play the #3 course. Unfortunately
there was nobody there to take our money. A local said
it would be okay to go ahead and play for free. We decided to go
out and play with only 7 clubs each and no touching the ball
once you tee it up until it is holed. No marking balls on the
green and if faced with an un-playable pick up and move on to
the next. It was a fun ended to the day and we got to watch
the sunset along the Firth at 10:00 that evening while playing
Gullane#3.
Time to rest. Two days and counting. Talk to you tomorrow.
Dan King
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