Sidmouth Golf Club reach Emerton-Court Final

Sidmouth Emerton-Court team visited Ilfracombe for the second leg of the semi-final on Tuesday.
Travelling with a 5 - 0 lead from the first leg, Sidmouth had to collect at least half a point from the five matches to go through, all played according to match-play rules.
In the end, the result hinged on the first match, involving Emerton-Court Captain John Barnard and Lester Willmington. Two down early, Lester and John clawed their way back to lead by a hole after nine but then Ilfracombe took command and by the 16th, were two up with three to play.
John hoped to have won the 16th with a long birdie putt but this was matched by Ilfracombe, so two down with two to play. Unfortunately, on the 17th hole, the Ilfracombe player played John’s ball by mistake and match-play rules require automatic loss of hole.
One down on the last hole, Lester stroked his ball on to the green on the long par 3, rolled his putt up to less than a foot for the par, which neither Ilfracombe player could match so the vital half point had been achieved.
With the four remaining matches, Sidmouth lost two matches quite early and, although the other two made it to the 18th, both matches were also lost by Sidmouth.
This meant overall, Sidmouth had prevailed by 5.5 to 4.5. In any sport, to lose in the semi-final is always disappointing but Ilfracombe took their defeat with good grace and wished their Sidmouth opponents good luck in the final, which is due to take place at Churston Golf Club on Tuesday 21 September, against Tiverton.
Having won the away match earlier in the year, Sidmouth were looking forward with some confidence to the home fixture with Fingle Glen.
Results initially didn't live up to this expectation with the lead off pair of John White and Mike Davis finishing 1 down. Matters improved with Leslie Pratt and Chris Grubb, and Colin Paddon and Charles Brown both winning by 3 & 2.
Nigel Sharp and Richard Seaver won 4 & 3, whilst the best success of the day came from Steve Nunn and Paul Blay who won comfortably by 7 & 6. The final result was 4 - 1 to Sidmouth.