Society of Liverpool Golf Captains Centenary event - Organised by St. Andrews Golf Vacations

In 2006, Steve Cooke, Managing Director of St. Andrews Golf Vacations had a phone call asking a mysterious question, ''Can you organise a golf outing for 350 people?'', it was a chap called David Morris, who was from the Society of Liverpool Golf Captains, and an ex Captain of Dean Wood Golf Club

David went on to explain that in 2008 it was the Societies Centenary and it was only fitting that it be held at the ''Home of Golf''.

The Society is steeped in History, it comprises of Captains and Past Captains from 27 Golf Clubs in the Liverpool area, two very famous ones, Royal Liverpool (Hoylake) and the 2008 Open venue, Royal Birkdale.

The requirements seemed simple enough on paper, but the logistics were not quite as simple as that, however as Steve explains, there are no such things as problems, only solutions!

• 3 Golf Courses of excellent standard in the St. Andrews area.
• Extra carts at Golf Courses.
• Lunch/ food at Golf Courses
  
• Accommodation for 350 people.
• A venue for a welcome reception.
• A venue for a gala meal for 350 people, to include top table.
• A venue for the Captains to utilise as a scoring room
  
• Restaurants in St. Andrews for evening meal
• A photograph of 350 people outside the Royal and Ancient.

The first thing to be done was to look at the ''busy dates'' in the area for 2008, so not to have any major conflicts. Steve created ''St. Andrews Golf Vacations'' after falling in love with the Golf Courses in the area as a young lad when holidays in the 1970's were spent in St. Andrews, a distant cry from industrial West Yorkshire where he lived in Wakefield.
Steve joined the RAF in 1983 just so as to get posted to Leuchars, a long par 4 to reach the famous Links across the Eden River!

This enabled him to represent the RAF at golf and play all the great local Courses and fall in love with them.
Having visited 3 ''links with History Courses'' with David Morris and members of the Society, it was decided to approach Ladybank and Crail, 2 of the Worlds oldest golf courses to check availability, and to see if they could cater for such large number. These things have to go through committee's and a nervous wait was had by all to see if we could be accommodated

Meantime, Steve Cooke had approached Jason Schellenberg from the Old Course Hotel, to see if he could kill 4 birds with 1 stone!

His idea was :

1. To utilise the Old Course Hotels ''Hall of Champions'' for a welcome reception, which he hoped could be eventually granted ''civic reception'' status given the magnitude of the occasion.
2. To utilise the Old Course Hotels ''Hall of Champions'' for the prize-giving meal
3. The Old Course Hotel was purchased in 2005 by Herb Kohler, and came with its own Golf Course, the St. Andrews Dukes. Mr Kohler has spent millions of pounds on an already great Course, and is one of the best in the area, it seemed fitting that this be requested as one of the 3 courses
4. To request a scoring room for the Captains to peacefully (if not painfully!) go through over 300 cards a day

The dates were pencilled in for Sunday August 17th to Wednesday 20th August 2008

After a few weeks wait we had secured the big pieces of this gigantic jigsaw puzzle

Sunday - Welcome reception - Hall of Champions - Old Course Hotel, Resort and Spa

Monday- Wednesday - Golf at Crail Balcomie, Ladybank and the Dukes

Wednesday Evening - Prize giving meal at the Hall of Champions - Old Course Hotel, Resort and Spa.

The Tom Morris Junior room at the Hotel was also to be used for the Captains to score in on Monday- Wednesday

The next small problem we had was where to accommodate over 300 people.
Gordon Brown had just been in St. Andrews and opened the newly refurbished David Russell Apartments, part of the St. Andrews University accommodation, and during term holidays would be open for the general public to use.
Linda Richardson & Kim Malherbe (Conference and Group Services, University of St Andrews) were approached, and this was seen as the ideal location to house the majority of the group.

All that was left to do was to put the garnish on the whole occasion.
Here is what else has been achieved

• On Sunday 17th August, the reception has indeed been given a ''Civic'' status, and the Provost of Fife, Cllr Frances Melville will open up proceedings by welcoming the Captains to the Home of Golf. Joyce Falconer, from BBC1 Scotland Soap ''River City'' fame will also be giving the Captains a Scottish welcome. A young piper by the name of John Heaton- Armstrong will be piping in the Captains at the Old Course Hotel
• The staff at each of the Golf Courses have been nothing short of fantastic, helping to sort out Carts and food on a daily basis. Special mention must go to the Professional at Ladybank, Sandy Smith who has gone above and beyond the call of duty on several occasions

On Wednesday 20th August, it appears that this group are going to break a couple of records

1. Campbell Savage (Royal and Ancient) will be in charge of what is believed to be the largest every group photograph outside the Royal and Ancient, which it is hoped will include the Captain of the R&A, Mr David Harrison. What will make this more spectacular is the fact that the Society will all be wearing long tailed red jackets (see picture below) Having obtained a temporary road closure from Fife Council/ Fife Police, the Captains will be piped by the Fife Constabulary Pipe Band to the Old Course Hotel for pre meal drinks


2. It is believed that the meal will be the largest ever meal sitting in the ''Hall of Champions'', guests invited Gavin Hastings OBE, Provost of Fife, Cllr Frances Melville and the Captain of the Royal and Ancient

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