PGA Fourball at Craigielaw Golf Club

For the final event of 2024, we travelled to Craigielaw Golf Club on the East Coast to play in a PGA Fourball event. This is normally the last event on the schedule before the winter shutdown and I was pleased to be playing with my usual doubles partner.
After a long journey due to heavy traffic, we just made it with 15 minutes to spare, but not much we could do when a journey that would normally take just over an hour ended up taking nearly 2 hours!

We headed straight to the tee where we met our playing partners and it was nice to catch up with an old acquaintance I’d played with almost 30 years ago.
I hadn’t met the other Pro before but knew his name because he’d been at the same club for nearly 35 years.
We briefly caught up before teeing off but it wasn’t till midway through the front 9 that the guys asked me where I was now after leaving Westerwood so long ago.
This allowed me to share my experiences with LGMS and all the different events we’ve had over the years with various speakers. They didn’t have any faith as such and I wasn’t too surprised that there were no further questions, but at least they knew where I was at.

We all played fairly steady golf but not many birdie putts being holed which meant we weren’t challenging. Unless you go 4 or 5 under for each 9 it’s hard to keep the momentum going and we were both sitting at just a couple under despite no dropped shots. 

There was a conversation later in the round where one of my playing partners asked more about my care work and seemed interested in how it worked.
I was able to share how both my wife and I started by simply wanting to help someone less fortunate than ourselves and thought we could do it in this way.
I added that we felt led to go down this path and after much thought and prayer, we were given the opportunity.
Not only were we helping others but through the process it helped us to grow also. He seemed thoughtful after my comments.

With only 5 Holes to go, we needed to birdie every hole

With so many Pars being made and with only 5 holes left I challenged all of us to birdie every hole in. I also said this with 4 holes to play and with 3 holes to play and so on. There were no birdies, just a whole load of pars. In the end, I turned it into a positive by saying at least we didn’t drop any shots which got a laugh. I shared the story of once being 5 over with 5 to play and saying I’ll just need to birdie every hole left. Although this was unlikely, it was possible, and even then I still finished 5 over. The moral of the story is that if you aim for the moon then at worst, you’ll hit the top of the trees. 

Everyone wanted to get away early to beat the traffic so it was simply a case of getting the clubs in the car to head off. We did say we hoped to catch each other again at next year’s events and I’ll try to visit one of the guys at his club for a coffee.

“Waiting is hard, but the time will come soon enough”

We keep going in Hope,

Vincent Brown, PGA Professional, LGMS Ambassador to the Tartan Tour

To Get in Touch with Vincent Click Here