| Day 11 - Tuesday, August 30 - Newfoundland | << Index |
| Anticipated: Play St. Andrews Na Creige Golf Course in Doyles, Newfoundland. |
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| Click on the photos below to enlarge | ||
 Pat MacIsaac (golf course designer and owner), Jim, and Dan Sheaver |
 John MacIsaac and Tara Luedee, Pro shop attendant (left picture) Leverne Meade, Pat, and Fay Coffin (right picture). Leverne and Fay are golfers at the golf course |
 Scenery from the course |
 Pictures taken on the ferry |
 Dormitory bunk beds |
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We docked at Port aux Basques and had a 20-minute (30 kilometers) drive to St. Andrew’s Na Creige Golf Course where we teed off at 5:00 PM. This is the farthest we will travel on our entire eastern swing. The Newfoundland Island is sometimes referred to as “The Rock”. St. Andrews Na Creige is Gaelic for “St. Andrews on the Rock”. The golf course is seven years old and was carved in a beautiful setting right on the mountainside. The tee markers are huge boulders with engravings which were part of the original landscape. It seems that every shot was either up or down hill. There were no level lies. The view from every place on the golf course is spectacular with the panoramic view of a mountain range and water off in the distance.
We were met in the pro shop by Tara Luedee and John MacIsaac (brother of the owner), and they saw to it that we were setup with a golf cart, scorecard and directions to the first tee. Pat MacIsaac, the owner, was not present, but we later met him on the golf course. We want to thank Pat for his generosity in “comping” us for both the round of golf and the cart. Pat, his brother John, Tara and all the others at the course treated us like royalty. We were also presented us with a “certificate of ownership” of 1-square foot of the golf course. The land on which the golf course is situated) was granted to the MacIsaac family (great grandfather of Pat and John MacIsaac) in the late 1800s by Queen Victoria. We now own a piece of land granted by Queen Victoria. We also understand that our ownership allows us to play our 1st round of golf at no charge. We told Pat that we would certainly be back to play golf, but also to see how he is handling our property. He took some of the family farm and created a beautiful layout and had the first nine holes completed in 1998. He is presently in the process of building the second nine holes of the course.
Prior to tee off, a reporter from the Newfoundland Radio Network called for a telephone interview about our adventure, and we were happy to oblige
The weather was overcast with a fairly strong wind when we teed off at 5 o’clock. We had our first rain of the trip starting on the back nine (the second time around), and it drizzled continuously for the rest of the round. Since the course is nine holes, we played it twice. Jim had 46/44 for 90 (CR = 70.2, Slope = 122, yardage = 5698). Pat shot 112 (CR = 74.2, Slope 130, yardage = 5076). We probably should have scored better, but it was difficult to judge the distance to the greens because of the elevations.
The only disappointment of our trip to St. Andrews Na Creige and Newfoundland was that we were at the golf course for only four hours and in Newfoundland for eight hours; however, we had to catch the midnight ferry back to Nova Scotia. We finished our round just before dark (about 8:15 PM), had some conversation and a drink with Pat and were reluctantly on our way by 8:45. We had an excellent seafood dinner at a picturesque restaurant in Port aux Basques; after which we headed for the ferry docks. Fortunately we were able to get on the boat about 90 minutes early, which was great because we were able to get to bed early. Our beds were bottom bunks of double deck bunks in a dormitory setting.