2014 - Scarborough

 

   CEGS SPRING TOUR 2014 – SCARBOROUGH

Wed - 23rd to Mon - 28th April 2014

 

DAY 1 - Wednesday 23rd

Steve was first to arrive having travelled (indirectly via a somehow prolonged tour of the Lake District) from Cumbernauld after work and checked in first to the Hotel.

 

DAY 2 - Thursday 24th

The Crown Spa Hotel, Scarborough: the gathering of the masses. Sadly Chairman did not travel due to a family bereavement but he would consider travelling on the Friday. Mikey had to call off to cover for a work colleague who had fallen ill.

 

York – Scarborough. Ron had dropped Juanita off at their daughter’s in York and drove through in the morning, checked in, and met up with Steve. They booked a tee time at the South Cliff course although Ron maintains he had phoned the North Cliff course. Some suspect he only said this because we threatened him with a ban or handicap reduction for “testing” a course we were due to play the next day, others suspect Ron would not ‘have a problem’ with this!

 

Aberdeen – Scarborough. TC, Potts, Ed & Euk travelled down by train together although they could not all get adjoining seats. This did not however interfere with T’s social skills. He talked to anyone and everyone who was in the coach! All of us had independently made sandwiches for all four, this resulted in the supply well exceeding the demand and was made worse by Ed going on hunger strike between Dundee and York. TC took advantage and went into competition with the train trolley dolly by announcing “Spam BAPS for sale”. 69 (whom he called a lady he had befriended), claimed it was the first time in her life she had heard of a SPAM sandwich although she did admit she had tried corned beef once. So taken was 69 with this spam bap scenario she took a photo of “A Scotsman eating spam” to send to her friends.

On leaving the train at York Potts donated his food surplus to the young girl who had been sitting opposite to him, much to her delight. With 40 mins to kill before the train to Scarborough we hit the station bar. On entering, T decided to cuddle a girl standing outside only to discover her boyfriend was sitting 10 feet away. It was fortunate he saw the funny side of things. We all agreed it was the best station bar we had frequented and certainly put the Tay Bar to shame (of where TC had once been banned.) A suggestion was made that we wait an hour for the later train so we could meet up with the Warwick contingent. This was met with a firm “NO” from Euk who was concerned we may not get seats. Common sense prevailed and we got the planned train. We got to the hotel and checked in and Potts hit the spa.

 

Warwick – Scarborough. Scott, Matt & Stu travelled by train via York. They were met in Scarborough by Steve & Ron and dragged directly to a nearby pub before they had the chance to go to the hotel.

 

Liverpool – Scarborough. Jeff, JP & Marc had come to the end of their UK Championship Course tour (Carnoustie, St. Andrews and Royal’s Lytham & Birkdale) and  arrived at the hotel around 8pm in a bl**dy big black tour bus more suited to an episode of the ‘A’ team... sadly Jeff’s golf did not support this analogy as a plan ‘did not come together!’

 

After all the tourers had finally checked in we met at the Scholar’s bar. Some had won an extra round of drinks by rolling the dice. One of them, Potts, is still not sure why he had won and had just followed the barman’s instructions. It transpired Thursday night was quiz night and the organiser ”Barney” had granted us a concession to enter a team of 12. We were only going to enter 6 but when it was found the £1 entry fee included pie & peas the number increased immediately! It was great fun and lo & behold CEGS became joint winners. JP was pissed at Euk not having changed one answer to “Trueman” otherwise we would have won. Nevertheless we won 9 beer tokens which were dispatched quickly. Potts, as tour organiser supplemented this by buying us all Bacardi & Coke “Shots”.

 

Ron had retired earlier, the Yanks and Jeff left at 11:45. Steve, Ed & Euk required food and after a bit of effort found a kebab shop open near where Steve had eaten the previous night. It was when leaving the shop that confusion arose. They turned left out of the shop but Steve thought they had turned right. Because of this each time Steve directed them to “turn right” they were getting ever further from the hotel. Ed & Euk sussed the error out quickly and got them back on track although Steve still thought he was right. Arriving safely back at the hotel all retired to bed.

 

Day 3 - Friday 25th

We met in the hotel lobby at 11:30 for taxis to South Cliff golf course.

The haar which came in yesterday was still very much present and if anything was worse. It was a bit windy and considerably cooler which meant waterproofs, beanie hats and golf hats were needed. Because of the poor visibility Euk played the role of mobile foghorn. With a combination of his hogforn (yes, this is what he said) impersonation and the flapping of his arms his red jacket was visible up to about 100 yards. The plan was for him to go 3 holes with each group so everyone could get the benefit from his navigation aids. Ron & Steve did have an advantage having played the course the previous day. Ron however stated he had now played the course twice but still had not seen it. Some of the group had GPS devices. The problem was they gave accurate yardages but this was no use if you did not see the direction in which you were going. Only after 3 holes the 3 groups began to become further apart. On holes 5 to 8 the heavens opened and we were all drookit. We did consider walking in but it cleared up a bit. On reaching the clubhouse we found that Jeff, Potts, JP & TC had walked in after 5 holes. Euk had suspected this having picked up JP’s wayward tee shot on the 6th fairway.

 

On our return to the hotel everyone was delighted by the sight of Chairman sitting in the lobby, this led to much merriment, much alcohol, and a much longer ‘quick tea time pint’ than planned. Everyone was delighted that John had made it and the banter was choice!

 

In the evening we hit Weatherspoon’s for cheap food & drink. A bit later Matt invented a new drink to rival the gorilla snot – THE MUSTARD LAGER! Kudos to Steve for giving it a go! We all got home at different times with Stu & Steve getting in the latest (or earliest whichever way you wish to look at it) at 4:00am.

 

Day 4 - Saturday 26th

Potts and Chairman were up early and enjoyed the spa facilities at the hotel before having breakfast and then went outside the hotel for fresh air and a smoke (strange combination) Potts at this point must have been feeling the strain as a purely innocent comment from Chairman stating that, “it was a pity about the fog yesterday but the East Coast is prone to it at this time of year” was followed by, “well you f**king chose it!!”

 

Off to Bridlington in 3 taxis at 9:30, well almost 9.30! Two taxis headed off first while the other waited on Stuart who seems to have picked up too many of his uncle Boat’s habits!!. Two arrived at the course and luggage was unpacked and the cars left. Euk went into reception to the locker room and Ron followed. They were joined by Marc who announced “we are at the wrong course”, apparently there are 2 in Bridlington. After recalling taxis everyone eventually got to the correct course just in time to consume bacon rolls & coffee before the first group were due to tee off.

 

Euk did his moral support act by walking with each group for 3 holes. This was every group except Jeff, Marc & TC. Jeff took the hump cos he had not seen Euk since the 2010 Sunderland Tour. The weather stayed dry and most took advantage of a good, open parkland course. JP scored a net 1 on the 16th hole. This was reflected in the overall scoring which was much higher than the previous day.

 

In the clubhouse everyone had a good wholesome 2 course comfort food meal. We then hit the snug bar to catch up on the football scores. Ed fell asleep and we all tried to sneak out of the bar without him knowing. Unfortunately he was woken up by the silence. The taxis arrived at 5:30pm to return back to Scarborough. We thought Ron had to stay because his Oom Pah Pah band were performing in the clubhouse later that evening. One of the taxis was late because, unbelievably, it was heading for the wrong course as they had done in the morning. The taxi owner was furious.

 

Back in the hotel we watched the end of the Man Utd vs Hull match and also the Real Madrid Vs Osasuna game. Euk started repeating his favourite jokes. Chairman was amazed when Euk managed to come up with a joke on a random subject. John chose “Cabbages” and got the reply “I have a degree in cabbages – I have lettuce after my name.

We hit town and went to “Scholars” to redeem the last of the beer tokens won in the quiz on Thursday night. Everyone got back to the hotel reasonably early.

 

Day 5 - Sunday 27th

We met at 09:30am for taxis to Ganton. A good day was in prospect with at least 6 players in with a shout of winning the singles trophy. We arrived at the course in good time and were greeted by a retired member who attended to our every whim. After coffee the battle commenced. The course was good but the greens and bunkers got the best of most of the group.

 

After the round we congregated in the bar for drinks & presentation of prizes. Firstly we learnt that Chelsea had beaten Liverpool leaving the Premier League still wide open. Secondly we were served cake & sandwiches which were very nice.

The prizes were awarded and the full list is at the end of this newsletter. Invitations for volunteers for next year’s tour were invited.

 

Jeff, Marc and J.P left directly from the course for Edinburgh to connect with their flights back to the states early on Monday morning. Steve returned to the hotel to collect his luggage before setting off for Carnoustie as he returned to work the next day.

 

We met in the hotel bar for drinks before hitting the town for our Indian Meal in the “Indian Promise” at 9pm. We opted for the banquet meal which was huge and washed down by good beer and wine. TC found a friend in the owner who was subjected to T’s “hugs”. The usual jokes and banter ensued and we were all in hysterics at some point. After returning to the hotel some went straight to bed while others had a final night cap.

 

Day 6 - Monday 28th

Departure Day – We met in the lobby at 9:15 to see off the Midlanders. It was decided to send Scott 4 texts with each only containing a single letter. The letters were T,W,A,T. Euk was assigned the final “T”. As his mobile existed at the time of the dinosaurs, Scott received T,W & A straight away. As far as we know he is still waiting on T.

 

The scots contingent set off an hour later. On the Scarborough to York train we were entertained by a fare dodger trying to avoid the ticket collectors. The train from York was on time and we found our seats. Everyone was knackered and spent a quiet journey home (everyone but T that is). He did his usual and got chatting to various passengers. As we approached Dundee Euk went to say goodbye to T. He introduced Euk to the lady passenger who had been sitting opposite him. “Euk meet Mrs Longforgan. I call her Long for short”.

 

Euk disembarked and John, Ed & Potts travelled on to Arbroath and T to Aberdeen.

 

Another CEGS classic tour had come to an end.