After playing The Old twice on Thursday, I pretty much mentally was
feeling that the golfing trip was over.  What about Carnoustie?  Well,
I wasn't really looking forward to Carnoustie.  I don't mind playing a
hard course, but I was picturing, well, what we saw when The Open was
played there.  I thought I'd lose maybe a dozen balls, especially
being a little tired after 16 rounds of golf in 9 days.  Also, it is
the only course we played that was not really a links course.  So, I
figured I'd go there, get beat up, and prepare for home.  

I was very pleasantly surprised!  Carnoustie is a very enjoyable,
playable course!  I had a spot of trouble on the first hole - hit my
tee shot into a burn, but it bounced out.  I chunked something into
the left rough.  Hacked it forward.  Then hit a beautiful half-9 iron
run-up to a foot.  Made bogie.  I had a great caddie - Ian.  He was
not only a good caddie, but the caddies all had a great time needling
each other.  Mark's caddie, however, was miserable at reading putts.
Mark trusted him on the first green, and every single putt of the 4 he
made broke the exact opposite direction that the caddie told him!

The caddies at Carnoustie are all short and stocky, we decided because
of the constant wind, they had to be shaped that way.  They reminded
me of the Oompa-Loompas from the chocolate factory movie.

The second hole I still didn't have a swing, but on the 3rd hole Ian
handed me my 4-wood and told me to aim at the bunkers - I couldn't get
there, plus the wind would carry them right.  I, however, found my
swing and hit it past the bunkers, though I was safe in the middle of
the fairway because the wind did push it to the right.  Ian said "I
didna know ye had it inya!"  So now after getting warmed up, I started
to hit the ball really well.  Probably my best driving day of the
trip.  It was still quite windy, and on one hole, I had what would
normally be an easy 8-iron.  7-iron?, I asked Ian.  He said, sure,
here's a 7-iron, just ignore the fact that it says 6 on it.  Hit it
pin-high.

I would have had a good round and won all the skins if somebody hadn't
substituted a wet lasagna noodle for my putter.  I didn't get the
speed right all day - and the greens were fantastic.  But I was 10
feet short most of the time on my lag putts... with the occasional 10
feet past.  I had probably 10 three-putts and still shot a 90.

But this was good-bye to golf in Scotland, and we headed back to get
packed up for the return trip.  Some of us spent the afternoon walking
around the town of St. Andrews, then packed up, drank a few final
pints, and it was over.  It was good to be going home, but sad to be
leaving the great golf courses of Scotland.

Thus end the Chronicles of Thor's Scottish Golf Trip.  I hope you
enjoyed them, or at least they were an adequate sleep aid.  My
golfing-heart is still in Dornoch, smelling the sea and watching the
gorse and Scottish people playing The Gemme so differently that it
seems they are on another planet.  I can hardly wait for my sons to
grow up so they can take me there again!

Lots of pics to come soon, they will be here:
  http://rsgohio.netfirms.com/scotlandpics/nfpicturepro
And all my writeups, other scotland stuff here:
  http://rsgohio.com/scotland
The RSG-USG match, including bios is here:
  http://rsgohio.com/rsgusg

Lang mae yer lum reek!

--Thor