The second round of the Sidmouth Jewellers Friday stableford was the first competition of the weekend, writes John Barnard.

A good field played in reasonable conditions. All through the winter, we have been playing lift and place across the course so to move to lift and place on closely mown surfaces makes a huge difference and scoring well is proving difficult.

The wet and relatively cold Spring so far means little growth so there are some poor lies in the rough which the ball seems to find unerringly!.

Last week, David Burgess took the glory, winning with his interestingly unique style of play. Someone who should know better commented that even a blind pig finds an occasional acorn at some point!

David didn’t rise to the ribbing, he bided his time until this week’s competition and then gave the best possible answer by winning again!

Despite bogeying the first, he then had a string of pars and birdied the ninth and eighteenth holes. A run of bogies at the start of the back nine was the only blemish on a good round. He won on countback from Howard Cushing who used his shots well and a par on the last helped seal his round. In third place was Duncan Taylor on 34 points. Playing off a handicap of one means errors can only be corrected by birdies. Eleven pars and two birdies on a difficult day was a reward for good play.

It’s early days in the Friday Night league table but two wins out of two mean David Burgess is leading, three ahead of Kevin Legg and a further three ahead of Steve Milton.