On Sunday, players from Sidmouth Golf Club visited East Devon for the second leg of the Picture Match, a long established rivalry between two local clubs, writes John Barnard.

The first leg was won by Sidmouth 13-11, but captain Chris Lewis knew that a larger lead was needed to give Sidmouth a good chance of the overall victory.

The match is played in Ryder Cup style, foursomes in the morning, individual match play in the afternoon, all off scratch so individual player handicaps were irrelevant. Initially, the morning went well with Sidmouth going ahead in a number of games in the early stages but by the end of the morning, Sidmouth were 6-2 down with only one win and two halves including the last match featuring club captain John Barnard and John Welch. Remarkably, as they set off John Welch commented that he had never played foursomes before which for someone well past 21 (?) years of age is very rare.

Things did not get better in the afternoon with four victories and two halves in the sixteen matches.

The successful afternoon golfers were Paddy Tallon, Steve Crabb, Will Hastie and Matt Bavington winning and captain Chris Lewis and Paul Hitchcock getting halves.

Overall, Sidmouth lost 28 points to 20 points, but as always, the pre and post match banter was good.

Chris Lewis announced this was his final year as Picture Match Captain so vice-captain Ray Gunston will be looking for someone to take on the mantle next year and get the Picture returned to it’s rightful home!