Thu June 6 - 16:30 (St. Andrews: Golfing)

We awoke at 7:30 and checked out but we left our luggage at the Guest House to pick up after golfing. We walked across the old course on our way to the Strathtyrum Course and it seemed extremely difficult. Every hole was very narrow and covered with hazards like sand bunkers and tall grass. I'm glad we played an easier course. It made it much more enjoyable. Also, you had to have a caddy on the Old Course. They wouldn't let anyone damage the course by using trolleys. We walked down to the Eden Clubhouse and checked in. There we got a set of clubs, our shoes, complimentary socks, scorecards, a booklet about the Strathtyrum Course, and our golf trolley. We got a locker to put our shoes and things in. Yesterday, we purchased St. Andrew's golf gloves. We practice putting on the practice green and got some practice balls to hit from the driving range. The Calloway clubs Ricky and I got to use were amazing.
Then we checked in with the starter and teed off right at 10:00. The area and especially the weather was beautiful. It was brisk and a little cloudy in the morning but then blue skies appeared with the sun warming my face. The course was the most gorgeous course I have ever played on. When you looked to the left you would see mountains in the background meeting with the sea, and when you looked right, you saw the town of St. Andrews resting on a hill. I've never seen anything like it. We played all 18 holes straight through and it was so much fun. I got a couple pars and Ricky got one too. We both had very good games considering we haven't played golf long and since we haven't played since before we left for Europe. The front 9 was busy with people, but everyone went in for lunch so we had the back 9 almost entirely to ourselves. The fairways were so wide with only a strip of tall grass and gauze bushes on the sides. We had some great shots. I was 70 yards away from a hole and hit the ball with a 7-iron. The ball flew up, hit the ground, rolled forward, and bounced on the pin! It landed just a yard or 2 away from the hole, and I sunk it for par. Once we finished Hole 18, we shook hands and smiled for we had played the most fun game of golf we had ever played.
We went back to the main clubhouse and ordered a lot of food. While we waited for our food to come out, we counted up our score. Ricky counted his and I counted mine. I told Ricky I got 106 and he lit up with joy saying that he got 105. We each wrote down the other's score while playing so we double-checked each other. After double-checking, Ricky told me I had done my math wrong and that my score was 105. We had actually tied! We were both pleased to hear this as we were very even throughout the whole match.
We walked back to the guest house and picked up our luggage. Then we walked to the bus station. When our bus arrived, we purchased 2 tickets for Edinburgh from the driver. We are on it now and should arrive around 19:00.