Result: Sidmouth 3� Dartmouth 2�

Both the home and away matches are popular with Sidmouth and Dartmouth golf clubs, with wonderful views a feature of both courses. Our golfers do have to come to terms with a course 2,200 yards longer than ours, while Sidmouth presents a testing challenge for even the most experienced golfer, writes Terry Carter.

John Bainbridge chose past club captain Roger Bawden as his partner as he welcomed Dartmouth Seniors, facing Alan Goldthorpe together with Colin Bell, who was giving the shots.

There may well be a few of a red persuasion like me who are currently on a downer and trying to avoid any mention of Man City, so will have been shocked to notice that Colin’s famous namesake played for Man City in the 70s. This more acceptable Colin Bell and his partner had a very close contest with our pair, but led by one hole at the turn then secured the first point by two and one.

Next off, Colin Paddon and Peter Emery were both giving two shots to Dartmouth’s Colin Cooper and David Morrall, and despite facing a wide fairway on the first, the golfers were beaten by the bordering trees. Proof if needed that you can hit a 100 yard wide fairway 10 per cent of the time and a two-inch branch 90 per cent of the time. This game was also lost by the Sidmouth pair but by an increased three and two margin, ensuring that they had another practice at collecting the money after dinner.

Mike Anderson and Mike Teague were next off with Anderson giving the shots to the visiting pair, who also had the advantage of not struggling to remember their opponents’ names. Always a problem for seniors!

In a very close game throughout, one of our Mikes birdied the first hole, and the other Mike birdied the 17th for a one-hole win and Sidmouth’s first point.

In the next game, John Hicks and Charles Brown were receiving shots but contemplating defeat as they stood on the 17th tee facing Dartmouth’s George Reeve and Arthur Carr who were one up. However, Charles capped a good round with birdies on the 17th and 18th to secure a win and level the match.

Alan Billinghurst and Charles Warren had yet another good game with handicaps closely matched, and Billinghurst negotiated the trees on the left of the eighth to par to take the lead.

However the visitors fought back well to halve the game. With the match now level with one game to finish, John Bainbridge decided to race back down the last two holes to encourage his troops, and this impressive display apparently helped.

David Bromage and Mike Fisher were evenly matched with the visitors, but they did have the advantage of their captain’s arm-waving motivation, and won two and one for the decisive point.