Yes I am having a bit of a blast on the old food tours this week as I am doing five! In fact it’s a veritable Tomahawk but I will come to that.

On Sunday I unusually had a mid-day food tour and I had four great guys from Chicago and we had many laughs. Many laughs were indeed followed on Monday evening when Leo and his crew from Dublin turned up and I would say the crack was tip-top.

It’s really amazing how small the world is though. We were standing on the Rusacks balcony and Leo was telling me how he lives in the Algarve now and that he is a member of Quinta do Logo. We were talking about the Royal and Ancient Golf Club and he said there was a member of his club who was Scottish and was also a member of the Royal and Ancient and his name was Keith something. Well not exactly ‘Keith something’ it’s just that he couldn’t recall his surname obviously and I ventured ‘Keith McCall’ who I knew was a member of the R@A and who I had grown up with playing golf at my club in Edinburgh, Mortonhall. And low and behold it was him ! Anyway what was even more amazing was that I had been playing golf at Mortonhall that very morning in a match against John Christie (yes I had got up at 3.50am to go and play golf in Edinburgh at 8am!) and somehow Keith McCall had come into our conversation which is really very strange because Keith left Mortonhall to go down to Gullane about 20 years ago!

Now what was also a bit spookily coincidental is that during my game at Mortonhall with John, we were having a good old chin-wag about things golf and he is a bit of a history-buff and he mentioned he had been reading Tommy’s Honour. And he talked about the old rivalry between Tom Morris and Willie Park and their great match which culminated at Musselburgh and ended in a dramatic law suit. Anyway John was surprised that I knew quite a lot about that infamous match and I did, but only because on my bus journey into Edinburgh that very morning I had been reading about the famous Chambers brothers (as one does!) and I got onto reading about William’s son Robert who was a very good amateur golfer and who had indeed won the first Grand Championship at St Andrews in 1858. Anyway to cut a very long story short, Robert Chambers Jnr had been the referee in this great match down at Musselburgh which ended in the said acrimonious law suit, which interestingly resulted in being declared void (they had been playing for quite a lot of money).

Anyhow what was I saying?

Yes these Dublin chaps were excellent fun and we had a great evening of it. The two McCarthy brothers and Leo’s brother-in -law Robin, I think?, who was a great AI guy and had a very nice disposition. As they all did actually. We really had a blast. And watch out for young Aingus McCarthy who at 22 is playing for Ireland as hooker.

And then last night I met Steve and his two sons, John and sorry I forgot the other nice chaps name. But anyhow we got on immediately. Steve was a bit of a big tease as we say here. It started at the off when I asked if everyone was ok with fish as that was the main food of the evening and Steve immediately declared that he was a big steak man. Slightly wrong-footed I declared that they had burgers and he immediately dropped a wry smile.

Anyway things couldn’t have gone better, we had a lovely drink overlooking the Old Course in the less than perfect weather but it didn’t matter. We were having a very good chatter. On the way out we walked past the kitchen and the steak displays and Steve mentioned how good these Tomahawks looked and I knew we were in for a night of Tomahawk madness. The poor waitress in Forgans who obviously didn’t get the in-joke really wondered about my consistent demands for a Tomahawk and Mark, the colourful and most flamboyant manager of Tailend, was rather tested on the Tomahawk front too. ‘Keith you really are not funny’ he exasperatingly exclaimed. Which is probably quite true but I’m bloody stubborn like Steve. And when I smell a steak I give it the full Tomahawk.

And it appears that Steve does too!

Anyway such fun lovely people. And I hope to see them all again and we can go for a …

Well you know what.

Fare forward passengers.

Yes at the moment I am having a damn good blast of it. And I mean that in a very positive sense. Things are tip-top.

My golf is undoubtedly at the fore at the moment. I am smashing it and am veritably on a very hot stretch. I have qualified for the MCBA championship and the Shanghai Shield, won a medal, had top 4 finishes in every competition this year and am playing the best gowf of my life. And it’s come about remarkably quickly. And long may it continue. As I said before this has been hard earned.

My tours are going so well too. I am just meeting the most wonderful people every week who are nearly always such fun and so inspiring. Last week on my food tour I had 8 laid back guys from St Louis and we had a great night of laughs and bonhomie. I am playing with two of them on the Old Course tonight. In fact I may also be playing with them at midday on the Jubilee but I will have to consider this because as McDiarmid gloriously said in A Drunk Man Looks at a Thistle ‘… and I’m no juist as bauld as aince I wes and the shekel is nay say souple, the thrapple grows deef and dour…’ (wee postscript: I did play on the Jubilee with them and rather felt it all afterwards. Two rounds in a day is a bit too much now! I am definitely nay juist as bauld as I aince I wes)

But anyway at one month short of being 64 years old I am beginning to settle down to a fair old gig. I have made more than my share of mistakes and ruffled more than a few feathers along the way. But who wants a smooth ride anyway? I mean look what that did to that poor old Prince Andrew Mountbatten Windsor Royal Dodgy chappy. Goodness me.

Anyhow, sea swimming beckons this week as tidal pool lover, aka the wall street caddie, pitches up in town on Thursday and he’s a nightly dipper. And I dare say I will be joining him.

So take care everyone. Be good, be happy, take your time over short putts, stand tall, eat well, drink moderately, wave at the odd dog, feed garden birds, smell the flowers and the furze, sometimes be a bit crazy and randomly exclaim ‘latte’ very volubly, keep your head down and always shout ‘fore’ vociferously if your ball is heading waywards. Otherwise you may be at the wrong end of a caddie’s wrath.

And one certainly doesn’t want that does one.

Up the Hearts and fare forward passengers.