John,
Can't believe I haven't seen this thread until now. It was great meeting you and your Dad. What a thrill for a first ever hole-in-one.
Not to hijack John's thread, but it was my first trip to Scotland also. John and I had communicated prior to the trip and were lucky enough to meet up. Ran into he and his dad a couple of times around St. Andrews, and they were there when my group lucked into a tee time at TOC. They were almost as excited as we were. John, glad that you and your Dad got on the course also. Pictures you took prior to our teeing off came out great.
My group played Carnoustie, Lundin, Crail Balcomie and TOC in the St. Andrews area, and then traveled up north and played Royal Dornoch, Brora and Nairn. Unlike John's experience, we had really benign weather our whole trip. Really only had three holes of rain at TOC, and no howling winds to speak of. It was a fantastic trip, and one I can't wait to repeat. Only course our group would not want to play again was Crail. First 5 or 6 holes were good, but we weren't that impressed afterwards. We all thought Carnoustie was a very fair course, and not as hard as we had been led to believe. Looking at the tees the pros play from would be a different story, and we did have pretty good weather that day. But, you could see almost all of the trouble from the tee, unlike TOC. The Dornoch area courses were a real treat, with my favorite being Brora. If I can figure out how to post pics, I have a couple of good ones to show.
We also met up with David Tepper in Dornoch. He and I had visited in the year leading up to my trip, and he had stoked the fires by sending me postcards and other info about the Highlands. It was nice meeting up with he and his wife while we were there. Very nice gentleman.
John, you were right about the eating arrangements. We finally figured out that we needed to plan to eat earlier than we had planned. We were the last group off on TOC the day we played, and squeezed all of the daylight out of the day, finishing about 8:45. Had a hard time finding a place to eat, but finally wound up at Aikman's pub. No 5-star place, but after a 36-hole day, the food and beer tasted pretty good.
Scotland was everything I could have hoped for. I don't plan for it to have been a once in a lifetime trip, but for a first trip it couldn't have been any better.
John, check your PM for my Vegas info.