The biggest field to date, during my time as pro, turned out on Saturday, 170 players braved the showery conditions to play an unusual format - American Foursomes.

The biggest field to date, during my time as pro, turned out on Saturday, 170 players (eight more than for Paddy's captain's day) braved the showery conditions to play an unusual format.

American Foursomes is played over 18 holes with a team of two, each player driving, switching tee shots then choosing the best second shot and, from here on in, play foursomes. As this format has not been tried before, it was tricky to know what a good score would be but I did predict 43/44 would be the winning score.

As it turns out, I was correct, as Martin Geddis and Spencer Jarrett played superbly together and scored 44 points.

In second place, with 43 points, were Keith Newton and Phil Long and, also with 43 points in third, were the familiar names at Opens etc Kevin Legg and Roy Turner.

The winning ladies' team was Margot Beauchamp and Maureen Howard with 34 points.

The evening was as good a success as the day and a packed clubhouse for prizegiving and the jazz and barbecue had the privilege of hearing some of my jokes and also, later on, my beautiful voice!

The first presentation of the evening was a very special one for me, as it was a presentation to the Junior Pro's day winners.

They played the same format as the adults, but only over four holes. The winning team seen collecting their prizes were Louis Dickson and Josh Haigh.

My thanks to all the sponsors of the day for their generosity with Nearest the pin prizes.

George Barber again played some great golf in the Monday stableford and blitzed the field with a great score of 47 points.

He beat Duncan Taylor, 44, who now stands .4 of a shot away from playing off 3, and Mark Badcock, also with 44 points. George now needs to go and play at other courses and, if he produces this sort of form, he should be heavily laden with Junior Open prizes by the end of the year.

Jonathon Lee must have had the best start of the field with a 2,3,4,3 run to leave him three under par. He could not continue with this impressive start but still amassed 41 points but, with scores of 47, 44 etc, fell short of the prizes.

Sidmouth Seniors visited Minehead Seniors in the return of a match that Sidmouth had earlier won 5-1 back in June. The home side were intent on retribution on a windy day, with the odd squally shower and were confident they could reverse the aforementioned result.

In the usual pairs matchplay format, the valiant men of Sidmouth set off hoping to complete the double.

Ray Gunston and Mike Humberstone lost 3 and 2 in the opening match, John Edwards and Dave Roberts halved match two, giving the visitors a glimmer of hope, but, in match three, Brian Dibley and Dieter Ritz also lost by a narrow 2 and 1.

Sidmouth rallied in matches 4 and 5, Bob Cooke and Julian Taylor, John Townsend and Trevor Bradley both coming in with 2 and 1 wins. At that point making the score 21/2 to 21/2.

All rested on the final pair, Colin Paddon and Terry Blackler, taking the spoils. Unfortunately they went down by one hole, decided on the last putt of the day. Final result Minehead 31/2 Sidmouth 21/2, but the aggregate score 71/2 - 41/2 to Sidmouth over the two matches proved a fine overall performance.