April 11, 2011
We held our 3rd Annual Drumoak-Durris Church Golf Outing at Ballater on Saturday 9th April. And for the third year in a row we were blessed with glorious spring weather. This is going to be a hard act to follow; April in Scotland, in North East Scotland, can be many things but to enjoy such wonderful weather on each occasion surely proves that the sun shines on the righteous ....... or that it never rains on a golf course!
We're grateful to Sally Richardson who put in the hard work of organising the event and who this year introduced us to a variation on the well-known Stableford format; that is to say, the Yellow Ball Team format. In this all the participants keep their own individual Stableford scores but in addition each team has one (we allowed two) Yellow Ball which is the Team Ball. Each player in turn plays the Yellow Ball and when he or she does do the Stableford score is tallied for the Yellow Ball and for that individual player. If a team loses its Yellow Ball - they're "oot" as one might say. So, the pressure goes on to keep the Yellow Ball in play.
The individual winner was David Bleck with 32 points, which included two net albatrosses! Nearest the Pin was won by Norma Spence, the Longest Drive by Bruce Wilson, who'd returned from a business trip to Moscow just in time fore the game, and the Team Stableford was won by Norma spence, Brian Nixon and Dave Bleck.
These outings are thoroughly enjoyable and allow us to mix with people we know from church but whom we don't necessarily spend a lot of time with. So why not come along next year; even the non-golfers are welcome as there is so much to do in and around Ballater and we can all meet up for lunch afterwards.