Yet another casualty of the awful ‘summer’ weather happened at Sidmouth Golf Club last weekend when the Potbury’s Trophy had to be abandoned around mid-day after yet another torrential shower fell on already saturated ground and flooded the greens, writes John Rockey.

One match which did take place this week was the annual match between a team from the Royal Marines and the Sidmouth Golf Club’s A Team.

Leading from the front, the Sidmouth pairing of Don Cooper and team captain John Rockey were not given much of a chance as they were up against the formidable Bob Horton (a former Sidmouth member, who now plays at East Devon) and his very fit young Royal Marine partner who could hit his five iron farther than the Sidmouth pair could hit their drivers!

However, an unusually fast start by Don Cooper saw the home pair three up after five holes at which time Cooper decided to take a bit of a rest and let his partner do some work.

Things improved a little by the 12th hole when Sidmouth had increased the lead to five up with only six holes to play, but by then the older pair were beginning to run out of energy (or was it luck?) and in a devastating last six holes the Royal Marines’ pair came back in two under par and in the end the Sidmouth partnership were lucky to struggle to a half.

The second pair of Pat McCormack and Colin Macklin had no such trouble and easily saw off their opposition by two and one. This win left Colin Macklin wondering how he can possibly draft Pat McCormack into his B team side as he has at last found a partner who could help him win a match.

Third out for Sidmouth was Trevor Kerridge and Peter Abrahams who had a fairly easy time of it and won by five and four, which helped Trevor to temporarily forget his painful defeat earlier in the week in one of the club’s knockout competitions.

At 2� matches to �, things looked good for Sidmouth, but as usual a banana skin was waiting for the team and it came in the form of past club captain Dave Hoare and Ray Gunston who never got to grips with the opposition and went down five and four.

Gunston put their defeat down to the fact that Hoare had made him play too quickly so that he couldn’t enjoy his normal stroll around the course.

Any question of a revival by the Royal Marines was soon quashed when buggy riders Bob Welsman and George Carr got a good three and two win against another former Sidmouth player, Jim Millen and his young big-hitting partner and the icing was put on the cake when the last pair of Bob Webber and Nigel Sharp overcame their opposition on the 17th hole to come home with a two and one victory.

So the A Team did it again and retained the magnificent trophy for Sidmouth Golf Club.