An early round was scheduled for the day a short ride from Troon at the Western Gailes club in Gailes. The club sits on the Ayrshire coast, just across the Scotrail train tracks from Dundonald, yesterday’s venue, and features views of Ailsa Craig to the south & the island of Arran to the west. Spectacular. This is true classic links golf with undulated terrain, pot bunkers, burns in sneaky spots, evil rough, and beautiful greens set between sand dunes. Just a fantastic venue and a ‘must’ play.
Our forecaddie for the day was ‘Swanny’. ‘Easy to remember’, he said – just think of ‘Suwannee River’. Poor chap had his hands full and earned his money today. 30+ mile an hour winds kept things lively. The wind was great when at our backs, but required 3 or 4 club extra going into. The first four holes played downwind (today), then we turned around and played into the wind for the next 8. The whining from our group was shameful. On the finishing set of holes (thankfully!) we had the wind at our backs. Penal bunkers & rough added to the challenging conditions.
Again, the weather cooperated. The dire forecast of rain for most of the day proved false. A light rain ended prior to our tee-off. We actually saw blue skies and a large, yellow thing in the sky halfway through the round!
As the course was half-way to the ferry services in Armadale we’d be using for the next leg of our trip, we worked with the club to store our luggage during the round, had lunch at the club (included in our booking) and taxi’d to the Armadale ferry terminal.
The Cal-Mac ferry runs a route from Armadale on the mainland to Brodick on the isle of Arran. It’s a big ship. In addition to food, Scottish beers & whiskies are available at the vessel’s pub. Swanny calls this particular route a ‘2-pint’ trip. Have 2 pints and you’re there!
Brodick is on the east side of Arran. Our lodging is at a small, cleverly-name, family-owned hotel, the ‘Blackwaterfoot Hotel’, in the village of Blackwaterfoot on Arran’s west coast. Blackwaterfoot’s name has an interesting source – the small river which runs through the village flows through peat bogs. The peat colors the water black along with the feet of children playing in the river. There you go.
Gus, our taxi driver, drove did the 30-minute ride from Brodick to BWF in record time. It was a gorgeous drive over the central highlands on typical, Scottish, 1-1/2 lane roads. Lots and lots of sheep! Gus fit the typical profile of the majority of taxi drivers we’ve encountered thus far – short, stocky, once-muscular but now fading body style, and bald. We did have one female driver with dark hair. She may have been wearing a wig.
Daily Team Stats:
- Lost Balls – 9
- Sand Traps – 21 (Dick as main contributor)
- Low Gross – Bill, 88
- Low Net – Bill, 79
- Birdies – 0 (2nd day in a row without)
- Dram o’ Day – Bunnahabhain 12
