funky_nomad

Back in pre-Buffer Zone olden days, when handicaps only ever went down, it was pretty commonplace for juniors to get to low single figures - a combination of playing golf every day during the summer holidays and there being at least 3 junior medals every week at my club meant that, cone August, maybe a third of the 50 or so juniors playing competitive golf would be generally be playing off 5 or less. 5 was also the cut-off for being eligible for the County team - as there was only 6 clubs in Clackmannanshire, this opened many doors to mediocrity (I once got cuffed 9&8 playing against Stirlingshire at Dunblane, and had played pretty solid golf - the twat I was playing didn't even offer to complete the round, just walked off the course to ensure everyone could see how early he'd won. I'm not bitter, though...)

Pffft, wasn't everyone???

Bugger, I'd totally forgotten about that!! Thanks for the nudge.

St Andrews members consider the Old Course to be the most scoreable of the courses they play their medals on, so I can't imagine a fourball with those handicaps would find the medal tees too intimidating tbh. Enjoy, and keep it left!!

The Hot Potato thread really gets under the skin of Scottish football...

Our winter sweep at Tulliallan employs a Leaf Ball system - agree with your playing partners that the ball has been lost in the leaves and it's a free drop from the approx position. As long as you don't play with new balls (and why would you?) it's a reasonable fix and saves time looking for lost causes.

Do you want comments as we submit (eg lovely course but the bacon butties come with generic tomato ketchup), or keep them for the post-list debate?

Anytime I've played The Dukes, I've had issues with the set-up to the point that I'm not sure I'd ever play it again. I once played it in a captains/secretaries invitation thing - they played it off the Black tees on a baking hot day with penal rough and the winning score was 24 stableford points - just ludicrous.

Yeah, we are extremely blessed, but I've turned down a few games at Carnoustie over the years for reasons I wouldn't even think of doing now (including opting for a game at the Dukes instead, FFS... )

Looking forward to this

I bloody love Carnoustie, but I just don't play it as often as I should for some reason. I reckon I had my best-ever ball-striking day on a golf course there a number of years back, but kept smoking my driver into wee pot bunkers that I wasn't even looking at. Felt like both a champ and a chump that day, shot mid-80's with about 10 or 12 fairway bunkers found; I was walking on air coming off the 18th.

Yep, I've heard of a fair few clubs considering this option.

Tulliallan adopted a policy of keeping full greens all year round a few years ago, and changed their annual maintenance/coring programme to make this possible. The upshot of this is that the greens tend to be better in November and December than they are for a couple weeks in August, but visitor fees are far higher than they were a few years ago. Any drainage works on the greens don't take place until March as the greenkeeper doesn't see the point of digging trenches/drains when the grass isn't growing over the winter months to repair the damage - the greens have never come on until mid-May anyway, so this makes perfect sense. It has worked really well, and those of us who play year-round golf are delighted at results. I think Strathmore near Alyth is another club that tries to keep the course on full greens, but they're geared up mainly for visitor greens fees anyway.

Shocked to my very core!

Cheers!

Suffered a nasty dose of sepsis and they found some other stuff in there while poking around. Better oot than in, though!!!

Started on 6.0, went up to 7.8 early in the season, hit some consistent form over summer and got myself down to 5.6 in early August, before drifting back up to 6.0. My season finished towards the end of August and I won't be able to pick up a club until around Xmas, which will be the longest I've ever gone without a game. And, yes, it sucks - I had high hopes of getting down towards 5.0 before winter.

Annual "Fan Engagement" target met 5 months ahead of schedule - a stunning triumph for the Board.

I see Connor Syme is paired with Pierced Morgan. Hopefully all the booing will be good practice for any future away Ryder Cup fixture...

I don't mind Leven as it happens (I play there fairly regularly in Handicap League matches), but the course condition (other than the greens) is pretty patchy - you can be in the middle of the fairway in a bare lie with the ball jammed up against a really lush patch. It used to be in far better nick, tbh. Lundy is generally in tip-top condition.

Yeah, locally they call the practice area "Leven Links" Best to use the range at Wellsgreen if you want a decent pre-game practice.

I see a film about the legendary Maurice Flitcroft is out soon, could be pretty entertaining (given the subject matter I imagine it'll follow a Eddie The Eagle film format, albeit without the "glory"). The book the film is based on is a great read.

It's a fun course (with terrific views on a good day) but £50 is taking the piss.

What were the odds that an organisation with a history of backing white elephants such as Scottish Golf would develop an App that doesn't work as well as others, but punish the players who have no other choice than to use it??? We cottoned on to that GPS restriction early on and advised everyone to use Howdidido for casual scores instead, but it's a joke that a functioning option isn't available for all golfers given we've all paid the same fee to Scottish Golf.