We’re starting out the week with a home cooked meal courtesy of our dear friend, Josh (he was a Bobby Jones Scholar in Atlanta 2024-2025)! He graciously welcome us to his prime real estate flat and cooked us ‘stovies.’ A traditional Scottish dish, stovies are made with whatever leftover meats you have, stewed potatoes, onions, and whatever other add-ins you might want (corn, carrots, sausage etc.) It felt chili-adjascent in its warm heartyness, but distinctly Scottish in its potato ratio and special gravy sauce. Absolutely delicious. 

You’ll notice two types of IRN BRU on the table. One in the glass bottles and the other in a typical aluminum soda can. Our residential IRN BRU expert and enthusiast, Josh, educated us on the difference between the two since they are, in fact, different! The historical lore is fantastic and too long for this post (you’ll have to ask Josh when you visit St Andrews), but the simple difference is IRN BRU Old and Unimproved (glass bottle) has the original recipe sugar content and no caffeine whereas the new IRN BRU has less sugar, more artificial sweeteners, and about 30mg of caffeine per serving.¹

In addition to hockey and golf lessons, I’m becoming a more frequent morning gym-goer. I woke up on one particular morning this week (it’s pitch black at 6:00am, not even a glimmer of the sunrise), turned on the lights, and began to get ready. Suddenly, a bee flew into my room. This has been a recurring problem since I arrived, as evidenced by the fact that `I have a special “bee tupperware” I use to capture and throw them out the window. I kid you not, a minute later at least 5 other bees are swarming my overhead light. Delivering medicine to an ailing David, Lucas happens to be outside my door. I yell for backup.

Now, its 6:20am. Lucas and I are flailing plastic tupperware with bees out the window, hysterically laughing and dodging the bees’ flight paths. It’s absolute madness. When we fling them outside they return angrier. If it gives you a sense of how chaotic the entire scene was, a few neighbors (who were already awake, thank goodness) texted messages of concern because of the noises they were hearing. Someone thought we were rearranging furniture.. We made no progress in permanently removing the hoards of bees, so we left the windows open, light off, and hoped they’d enjoy the natural sunlight over artificial light once the sun rose. Thankfully they did. 

Remaining in the vein of exercise endeavors, I attended my first ever recreational pickleball session! Big shoutout to David for finding this fun, local group!! The organizers and participants were so kind and inclusive (bearing with me when I didn’t know how they kept score or the technicalities of doubles pickleball). Just an hour each week, we play for a set amount of minutes (5-7 usually), whoever is winning at the end or reaches six points first moves up the court; if you lose, you go down. David and I brought the mean age down from what would have otherwise been ~50-60 years. Don’t let your age bias mislead you – these guys were excellent competition and I’ve got a lot to learn!

Friday, October 3rd marked the second day of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship golf tournament, but my first day down near the course! The Jones Scholars had the privilege to enjoy lunch on the 17th hole. What I found most incredible were all the temporary buildings constructed aorund and near the Old Course for this tournament. Since we arrived earlier in Septmeber, I noticed the gradual build up of concessions stands, restrooms, practice greens, and, most impressive of all, this psuedo ‘club house’ tent on the 17th hole. 

It is the only professional championship annually played at the Old Course. Dunhill’s format is distinct with two competitions, the DP World Tour pro competition & the Professional and Amateur Team Championship, carried out over several days of play on three courses – the Old Course, Championship Course Carnoustie (a course frequently rated as Scotland’s best course), and Kingsbarn Golf Links. In addition to world class athletes, many are drawn to this tournament because of the celebrities who partake in the amatuer team competition. Notable names this year are Andy Murray, Wayne Gretzky (who my teammate rate into in Tesco – jealous), Bill Murray, Matthew Goode, Huey Lewis, Mike Rutherford, Michael Douglas, Ronan Keating, Piers Morgan, Kelly Slater, and Steve Redgrave.²³

Above: if you squint or zoom into the top right you’ll see the Bobby Jones logo in the bleachers! Just out of frame to the right is the Old Course first tee. Bottom Left: I couldn’t help myself and needed to document the tent interior. Yes, of course it’s beautiful, but I could not get over how impressive it was that everything we were experiencing at lunch had been constructed in a couple weeks and soon would be gone. Fanciest, coolest tent I’ve ever seen (sorry, Dad, yours are a close second). Bottom Right: First tee in sight!

For more information about the longstanding partnership between The Alfred Dunhill Links Foundation and The Robert T Jones Memorial Trust and some quotes from your favorite Emory to St Andrews scholars: https://www.alfred-dunhill-links-foundation.org/news/inspiring-global-learning-at-st-andrews/

Since the first week we arrived, David and I had our hearts set on trying the 12€ lobster rolls we’d seen advertised. Great dish, great price. Alas, the day had arrived. After a practice session on the golf range, we went to dine at Dune. The restaurant aesthetic was well-curated. The side dishes (particularly the broccoli) were delicious. The lobster roll… it was a disgrace to have this be Lucas’s first lobster roll. Warning: moment of regional pride forthcoming. I always have known and been told that New England lobster, specifically, Cape Cod lobster is the best. So much so that I usually avoid eating it elsewhere. But my goodness, the fact of the matter is that this roll was just not good. Each element — bun, lobster quantity/quality, seasoning (they used paprika¿ I’m more of a butter and lemon typa girl), texture, temperature — needed work and alterations. Lesson learned: don’t buy 12€ lobster rolls in Scotland. 

Pre-hockey induction – a fantastic night. You can call me a ‘phoon now! S/O David and Lydia for dropping me off.

Story of Vissario Shebalin: Shebalin, a 20th century Soviet composer, suffered a left hemisphere hemorrhage at 57. He was left both speechless and deaf; however, he still continued to compose music. Yet, scholars found that his pre and post-hemorrhage pieces were found to be indistinguishable. Incredibly, he suffered impairment in word processing, yet the hemorrhage spared his music processing. (source: in class ‘brain basics’ with Dr. Ines Jentzsch).

1. https://irn-bru.co.uk/pages/faqs?srsltid=AfmBOorR7s5bQq8rORO8azQ08EerN1l1aOrS5NW1ZJX_BDEhyE38G34i ↩︎
2. https://www.alfreddunhilllinks.com/ ↩︎
3. https://www.alfreddunhilllinks.com/the-championship/#format ↩︎