After a delayed start for Sidmouth Golf Club B Team’s match against Axe Cliff Golf Club, the home team eventually stormed to their first win of the season, writes John Rockey.

Saturday’s heavy rain and hail showers, accompanied by thunder and lightning, prevented the teams starting the match on time and it looked for some time that the B Team’s first match of the season would be abandoned.

However, a break in the downpour allowed team captain Colin Macklin to eventually lead his players out of the bar and, accompanied by partner Nick Bater, must have wished that he had delayed the start even more as the pairing quickly went three down.

Nick had started the match with a stiff neck, but this soon developed into a bad back as he carried his team captain around the course and Nick’s good play allowed the pair to be all square after 15 holes. However, Nick was not able to keep the Axe Cliff pair at bay on the final three holes and the home team lost one down on the final hole.

Next out was the pairing of club treasurer John Barnard and Lester Wilmington who was making his first B Team appearance. Their Axe Cliff opponents obviously didn’t relish the conditions and the Sidmouth pair decided that it would be best to get the match over early just in case the stormy weather returned. As it turned out they could have walked in from the 11th hole, as they trounced their opposition eight and seven.

Sidmouth’s third pair of Malcolm Willoughby and Paul Renken were also able to endure the conditions better than their opposition and came in winners by four and two to put Sidmouth one up in the match.

Keith Newton and Denis Fenson came to the 18th hole one up with every chance of increasing the team’s overall lead, but one of the opposition holed a putt from one side of the green to the other to get an unlikely half

By then the weather had closed in again and heavy rain started falling which prompted the last two pairs of Peter Northcott and Mike Dommett as well as Lee Wenham and Don Cooper to abandon their games and declare the matches halved.

Talk in the clubhouse afterwards suggested that the decision to walk in early by these two pairs was taken so that someone could get down to the local bookmaker to collect his winnings from bets on the Grand National, rather than making the decision on common sense grounds, as the latter possibility was most unlikely!

So with Sidmouth winning two matches and Axe Cliff one, with three matches halved, Sidmouth managed to record their first victory of the season.