On Wednesday 19th June 2024 we set out to complete 72 holes of golf as part of The Big Golf Race. We took on this challenge to raise money and awareness for Prostate Cancer UK. It is an incredibly important cause as 1 in 8 men will get prostate cancer during their lifetime. G also partners with them through her day job, so has first-hand experience of working with the charity and seeing their work. We decided not to venture far and to do the challenge right on our doorstep in St Andrews. Where better to attempt this challenge than The Home of Golf?

The Eden Course would play host to our 2nd round of the challenge. At 5869 yards and a par of 70, it was not the longest course we would be facing and would provide many birdie opportunities to take us further under par after our opening round of 66 (-3) on the Strathtyrum Course. The Eden was built in 1914 by Harry S. Colt and it borders The Old Course on the way out providing some great views of the most famous course in the World. The course also uses the beautiful Eden estuary as a hazard on multiple holes. Despite its length, a mixture of the bunkering and other hazards that come into play on this course make it a great challenge. The green complexes are small, with some severe slope. The 7^th and 8^th holes, in particular, are elevated above the fairway and have steep false fronts to repel any short approach shots.

We began our 2^nd round just after 9am with a couple of solid tee-shots down the right-hand side of the 1^sthole. A fantastic 2-putt par up and over the large false front from short of green meant we moved to the 2^ndhole with a pep in our step. The 2^nd hole follows, which is one of the longest on the course. It usually plays as a par 5 for the women and a long par 4 for the men. G hit a solid drive and Cam followed with a good approach that just trickled off the left side of the green. G was left with a 50 foot putt from the fringe which she left just hanging on the edge of the hole. As we walked up to the ball, it finally dropped for our best birdie of the day so far. 

After a routine par on the 3^rd, we reached the short par 4 4^th hole. Despite being only 270 yards, it plays as one of the trickier tee-shots on the course since there is water right and gorse left. Cam hit his tee-shot slightly right of the green leaving an impossible chip, so we decided to go with G’s ball which was just short and to the left. Coming from the short left is the preferred angle for the approach as steep runoffs guard all other sides to the green. Cam failed to take advantage of the tee-shot by leaving his chip 20 feet from the hole. In the true fashion of golf, still riding the high of her last putt, G holed the putt to take us to -2 through 4 for our round. 

We then made solid pars at the 5^th, 6^th and 7^th holes. Special shoutout to G on the 6^th and 7^th as Cam lost his swing for a little while and was quite errant with his tee-shots. An unfortunate 3 putt bogey at the long par 3 8th, followed by a 2-putt birdie at the short par 5 9th, led us to a 3rd successive 33 (-2) for 9 holes.

The refreshment cart at the back of the 9th green was a welcome sign and allowed us an opportunity to top up our sugar levels before facing the back-9. Cam opted for the more Scottish refreshment of Irn Bru, while G was a little less Scottish with her Coke.

The back-9 on the Eden was probably one of the more frustrating that we encountered during the challenge. With the greens having undergone some recent work, we were desperately struggling to make any putts. This meant birdies were very hard to come by and  it would require very good approach play to avoid bogeys. 

On the long par 3 10^th hole, G found the putting surface from just under 200 yards and Cam just slightly over read the putt for birdie. Another excellent long putt from just short of the 11^th green meant another simple par. The 12^th is a short 310-yard par 4 that plays as a slight dogleg right. Cam quickly found the gorse that covers the right side, while G was a little safer down the left.  A poor approach shot meant we really did have to work a bit harder on this one to make our 3^rd consecutive par. On the 13^th and 14^th, routine pars followed. These were both tough par 4s to navigate and par is a good score.

Once you have completed 14 holes on the Eden, you reach the furthest extent of the property. You then turn around and play the remaining holes directly back to the clubhouse. Luckily for us, these holes were playing downwind. On the 160-yard 15^th hole, we both hit relatively poor tee-shots. Unfortunately, we were unable to 2-putt and left the green having made our 2^nd 3-putt bogey of the round. With both bogeys coming on par 3s, the short holes were beginning to look like our Achilles Heel. 

Good pars at the long 16^th and 17^th holes left us 1 under par with 1 hole to play. The 18^th is a short 320-yard par 4 surrounded by gorse on all sides at the green. G played 1^st and hit a safe shot down in the fairway. Cam then played aggressively with the driver and finally found a good one that ended up just short-left of the green. G then chipped up to 4 feet, with Cam dispatching the birdie putt. This led us to a back-9 of 35 and a 2nd round score of 68 (-2). We were off the course by 13:00, which left us an hour to play with ahead of our Jubilee Course tee-time.

These 2 rounds put us at -5 at the halfway stage with the 2 more difficult courses to face in the afternoon. Overall, we were both relatively pleased with the Eden round. Much like the 1st round, we felt we had left a lot of shots (particularly putts) out on the course. With 2 rounds still to go, we had left ourselves a good cushion to still finish cumulatively under par.

To watch all of the shots from our round please see the link below: