Sidmouth Golf Club played their final East Devon League match of the season when they met Woodbury Park Golf Club on neutral ground at Exminster Golf Club, writes John Rockley.

With results earlier in the season not going Sidmouth’s way, the league title, won by Sidmouth for the last two seasons, was out of their reach, but the team was anxious to finish as high up the league table as possible.

First off for Sidmouth was the successful partnership of Stuart Coles and Nathan Brace who once again came up with the goods and got the team off to a good start with a 3 and 2 victory against Woodbury’s top pair.

The momentum was blunted a little when the next pairing of team captain Lewis Perry and George Barber lost two down in the second match.

Normal service was resumed when club captain Paul Hitchcock and regular partner Trevor Kerridge showed their reliability in getting another win for them this season and when Nick Bater and Moray Bosence halved their match, Sidmouth couldn’t lose the encounter. However, Sidmouth’s last pair was a hastily assembled combination of club president Alex Salway and club vice captain John Rockey who were losing for most of the round and it looked as if the overall match would be halved.

Somehow the veterans summoned up all their reserves of energy to win the last three holes to narrowly take a two up victory and with it a team win for Sidmouth by 3-1 with one match halved.

Friday Stableford

A new name appeared on the winners list for the Friday Stableford at Sidmouth Golf Club when Geoff Lory used his maximum handicap well to score 39 points to win the latest competition. Bolstering his likely chances of winning the Friday League title, Challenge Cup winner John Jones produced another good performance to come in second with 38 points, a round which included 4 birdies and an eagle. In third place was Steve Crabb with 35 points, which were bolstered by his birdie 3 on the difficult 16th hole.

In the battle for the Friday League which will be decided at the end of this month, John Jones has consolidated his lead with 100 points, with his nearest challenger George Barber on 90 points and with only 3 rounds remaining, the title looks to be between these two.

Kingswood and Devoran Hotel Medal

For the final medal competition of the year, Sidmouth Golf Club wish to thank the Kingswood and Devoran Hotel for their kind sponsorship.

On a dry and bright day with the course in very good condition, scoring was surprising difficult with only two nett scores in the whole field being below par.

The best nett score of the day was compiled by Pat McCormack, with a nett 63 to win Division 1 by no less than 6 shots and as an extra prize Pat got his handicap reduced to 8. Second with a nett 69 was Will Hastie who just beat David Cowler into third place on a countback.

In Division 2, Lawrence Hill won with a nett 65 to take the top prize from Doug Jones who came second with a nett 68 and Brian Margison third with the same nett 68 again on a countback.

In Division 3 Chris Roberts must have been a bit surprised to win with his nett 70, but this was well clear of the nett 74s scored by Craig Melluish and Stuart Ruffle with Craig just getting second place on a countback.