July18 recordholder

Question: Who is the Carnoustie course record holder? If you answered Colin Montgomerie you’d be half right – Monty shares the honour with fellow Scot Alan Tait, the newly-appointed Director of Golf at the new Carrick course at Loch Lomond.

Alan will never forget that magical day when he shot a glorious 64 in the Tartan Tour event, the Scottish Daily Express National Championship, when he produced the best round of his life to beat the previous record – jointly held by Tom Watson and Jack Newton who both recorded 65s in the 1975 Open – by one shot.

Monty emulated the feat in the Scottish Open but Alan reflected: “I don’t begrudge him matching my record one little bit. To be honest, I’m amazed it’s lasted as long as it has done.

“I remember it was just one of those days when everything went right, everything clicked into place. I never looked back after birdieing three of the first four holes and from there I just felt that something special was about to happen.”

Indeed it did. Alan stood on the 16th tee nine-under-par and although he bogeyed the monster par 3 16th he managed to keep his cool and composure and finish with a couple of pars.

He added: “Golf, for the first time in my life, felt so easy. I drove it great all day long…it was just a really great round of golf: I think the longest putt I had to make was a 12 footer!”

Alan has a sneaky suspicion that his record will stand after this week, saying: “It’s going to go one day that’s for sure, but I think it’s more likely to be broken at the end-of-season Dunhill Links when the course plays a lot easier.”