Fore

I intend playing more golf this year. With the cricket season looming, my enthusiasm for cranking the arm over on chilly Edinburgh evenings after scrabbling about to get a team is on the wane. Can you tell from the language used? So golf needs to be the sport that carries me on into my late middle age.

Ignoring my outing with Sean at the Tongland Family Golf Centre, I had my opening round of the season at Elie in the company of Scott and Steve Caldwell and Pete Bell, Steve on a flying visit as part of his fledgling Edmonton-St.Andrews-Edinburgh tri-partite medical student set-up.

We were greeted by hail and assailed during the round by all manner of April weather. The variety of conditions was matched by the variety of golf on offer. I boomed one drive on to a green for a birdie three and kept us in the game over the middle holes but Scott and I succumbed once more to the Bell-Caldwell pairing, with Steve playing some of his best golf. He beat Scott two days' previous, at Panmure, off scratch.

It was good to get out though, and with my GreenFeeSavers and other tickets burning a hole in my pocket, I need to make the effort to get out this summer.