A tie for first place was decided on countback in the Sidmouth Golf Club Seniors ‘Ball in Bag’ competition last Wednesday, writes Hugh Dorliac.

It proved to be a close contest and, at the conclusion there were two teams on 77 points.

It was the trio of Brian Margison, Roy Smith and Paul Blay, who took first place with the threesome of Chris Grubb, Bob Cook and Dave Atkinson, having to settle for second place.

The Sidmouth Jewellers Friday Stableford was quite tight in terms of the top of the leader board last week.

What was another close-run thing, it was George Barber who took top spot with 39, just edging out both club captain, Lester Wilmington and Neil Holland, who each returned scores of 38.

The much-delayed Texas Scramble, which was to have been the opening competition of the season back in March, but was another casualty of the Coronavirus pandemic, finally took place and it saw 38 teams of four competing on a lovely sunny day.

Lester Wilmington saw everybody off on the first tee and also took the opportunity to collect funds for his chosen charity.

It was a high handicapping foursome of Adam Lloyd, Jon Evans, Paul Whitrow and Peter O’Brien that won the day with an excellent net score of 45.8 points.

Well done, to them in one of their first forays into competitive golf.

Second were Tim Chapman, Mike Dibble, Charlie Miles and Matt Cooke, recording another great score of 47.0 and Roger Bawden, Glyn Hewitt, Mark Laird and Colin Mitchell took third with 48.6. In the ladies’ competition Sheila Faulkner, Marie Timms, Yvonne Anning and Amy Moore won with a net 52.8 ahead of second placed Liz Chance, Ros Eaton, Mandy Furniss and Mo Borer who came in with 53.2.

On a gorgeously sunny Bank Holiday Monday in the Upper Crust Bakery sponsored stableford, 41 points was the winning score with David Pepperell beating James Spiller on countback with Dan Colson taking third.

The senior comp saw Roger Bawden featuring again winning on countback from Brian Margison and Chris Holland, all recording a score of 39.