The annual President’s Prize was hosted by club president Roger Bawd at Sidmouth Golf Club last Saturday, writes John Barnard.

Roger is in his second year of office and this year, he opted for a three-person team event with an unusual twist!

The format was; all three scores to count on the first hole, two to count on the second hole and one on the third hole.

On the fourth, back to all three and so on, for the 18 holes. Also, there was a separate competition for the par three holes, of which Sidmouth has seven.

The scores amongst the early players wasn’t great showing that either the course was playing difficult, or it was a difficult format.

Alan Billinghurst, Jeremy Fox and Bob Andrews had the first decent score in the clubhouse, with 81, but the expert view was that a score in the mid 80s or maybe even 90 would be needed.

Soon after, Sean Murphy, Martyn White and Matt Bavington also returned an 81.

The tension rose as the lower handicaps and form players were mainly going out later in the day, but in they came, muttering about what had gone wrong and making no inroads on the leaders.

In the end, the Billinghurst team triumphed, winning on countback from Murphy, White and Bavington. Ken Price, Malcolm Couldwell and Adrian Priest were third on 79 points.

In the ladies competition, the ladies matched the men with Andrea Milton, Susan Hackett and Liz Chance scoring an excellent 81 points, beating Angela Coles, Sheila Tallon and Ladies Captain Maria Clapp by four points.

A ladies team had the best score in the par three competition Sheila Faulkner, Yvonne Anning and MarieTimms.

There were two nearest the pin prizes. Sheila Faulkner won on the fourth, Tony Stoyle won on the 12th and Charles Warren won the nearest the gin on the 10th – cheers!

It was an excellent day, played in decent weather and thanks all round to president Roger for such effective organisation and fine prizes.