Sidmouth Golf Club’s top team travelled to Teign Valley last Sunday to play Dinnaton Golf Club in the second round of the Palairet Trophy, having been given a bye through the first round, writes John Rockey.

The Palairet Trophy is the premier club team matchplay tournament in Devon and attracts teams from all the county’s golf clubs eager to win this foursomes knockout competition, which Sidmouth last won in 2003.

Sidmouth were able to pick a very strong side with former Devon County Golf captain Neil Holland and ex Devon County Golf Champion Damion Gee being available.

Team captain Paddy Tallon split the normal top pairing so that Neil Holland played with the old man of the team, Jonathan Lee, and Damion Gee partnered David Bater. The Dinnaton team had a lot of higher handicappers which meant that all Sidmouth pairings were giving lots of shots, with all the pairings giving between 12 and 14 shots to their opponents. However, even with this extremely difficult task, the top pair of Holland and Lee combined well to overcome the 12 shots given to the opposition and posted an excellent 2 and 1 win when Lee holed a good putt on the 17th.

Sidmouth’s second pair of Gee and Bater were giving 13 shots to the opposition, but brushed such a disadvantage aside to beat their opponents by the best win of the day of 4 and 3.

The next match was a epic struggle with Duncan Taylor and Lewis Perry having to give 14 shots to the Dinnaton pair. The match was always close and with the Sidmouth pair going one down on the 16th hole, Duncan’s tee shot to the 17th was lost in the bushes close to the green which gave the Dinnaton pair a win by 2 and 1.

But this was only a blip in the contest as Neil Bunting and Stuart Coles, giving 13 shots, were in a comfortable position all afternoon and sealed a 3 and 1 win when Stuart holed his putt on the 17th green to give Sidmouth an unassailable position.

The icing was put on the cake when Will Hastie and Nick Gingell came in with a 4 and 2 win at the back of the field to give Sidmouth a 4 to 1 win and take them into the next round of this season’s campaign.