Crail

Many pictures had fallen off the walls, but a few faded pencil drawings were still in their places.

Just guess my surprise and astonishment when I found they were Scottish views, one of Edinburgh, one of Crail Church, and three of St. Andrews, including the old college and chapel, the castle, and St. Leonard's College, with date 1676.

Here was another most curious thing I determined to ask about before I left.

However, I touched nothing in the room as I had promised my host, and besides, you will laugh, I had no wish to be stricken with the Brown Witch's promised curse of blindness and ultimate death to any intruder who touched her things.

Briefly, it seems that she, the Witch, sent her son far away in those old days to a Scottish university, and St. Andrews was her choice.

It seems he was very quarrelsome in his cups, and frequently fought duels, and generally proved the victor.

One of the last he fought at Sochip Stone near Crail with a nephew of the Laird of Balcomie Castle, and they fought with broadsword and buckler, and again the Witch's son killed his man.

His last duel was fought on St. Andrews Sands with rapiers, and he was run through the heart.

And all the Labradors are fantastic on the golf course.

My dad is known to take all three of them to Crail quite regularly.

They just potter along.

He's the

Thanks for listening and enjoy the episode.

Hello Gary! You are a poet, scholar and creative writing tutor based in the scenic harbour of Crail in the East Nuick of Fife.

You hold a PhD in Literature from the University of St Andrews and have won several poetry prizes over the years including the Scottish Book Trust New Writer Award and in 2016 the Wicton Poetry Competition.

That same year You also published Scotland, a literary guide for travellers with the publisher Taurus.

John Yamaguchi.

The Crail Golf Course starter asks if this is your first time playing Crail.

If your answer is yes, you get a free emergency kit with teas, a pencil, crackers, and most importantly, a shot of scotch.

My scotch didn't make it past the fifth hole.

If Tony plays, I'm sure they'd add a breakfast sandwich to the kit.

No payday? This is the world's seventh oldest golf club.

Crail, is that in...

I think Scotland, maybe? Scotland, yes.

How are you, Michael? Good, thanks.

He was just boasted about playing Crail yesterday as well.

You haven't played it?

Not played it, no. It's one of my bucket lists, yes.

Yeah.

But, um, Monday and Tuesday were rounds at Crail Balcombe, which is, of course, about 10, 15 minutes from St. Andrews.

And then Tuesday was around at the new course, which was basically it can be thought of as a warm up for us before our big round on the old course on Wednesday.

OK,

and how are your conditions?

Um, weather was, was very, very pleasant for us all three of those days.

Uh, Crail, absolutely perfect, sunny, maybe 65 degrees, a little bit of a breeze by Scottish standards.

So maybe 15 miles an hour.

I mean, obviously that that's important for different reasons, but from a golf course perspective, it, you know, it's like the 17th hole on the 18th hole.

And, everything else is kind of like you know it's a great golf course don't get me wrong but it's just visually it's not as appealing so like there's a course out there called Crail it's like 20 minutes from from uh from St. Andrews that is just amazing like seventh oldest course in the in the world and um I don't know just all the right vibes and so I've been fortunate enough to play that a couple times and that one that place is really special to me as well so that's Those are, those are two quick, quick answers.

I'm sure I can, you know, we could pick those apart and I could probably pick a couple good ones, better ones, but Prairie Dunes is, is really good.

Do

We partner with some of the foundational golf clubs of Scotland.

On the one side, on the five side, we partner with St. Andrew's Golf Club with Scott's Craig, which is a club from the early 1800s, along with the Crail Golfing Society, which was established in 1786.

You know, it's pretty astounding, some of these clubs and when they began their existence.

Histories are amazing.

Yeah, long time ago.

Yes, that's a beautiful festival that we attend sometimes, and we make sand sculptures there in Crail, which is such a beautiful place.

And also, um, we do some so- some beach drawings, often in Elie, which again is the, the golden sands of Elie.

Oh.