The Sidmouth Seniors played their first golf match of the annual Jurassic Winter Series which is held over the November/December/January period involving meetings with Lyme Regis and Axe Cliff, Golf Clubs, writes Hugh Dorliac.

The format is individual stableford points contributing towards a total team score. Each team member plays against a member from each of the other clubs in a three ball group.

The first match was played at Axe Cliff and despite the recent wet weather, managed to avoid the rain although not the wind, on what is normally a well-drained course.

Sidmouth Seniors' captain, Chris Grubb, led the way and returned an excellent 35 points to take an immediate lead for Sidmouth against his playing partners.

Ray Gunston, out second, played well achieving 31 points, but his group seemingly lost their way, arriving at the clubhouse 35 minutes after the first group!

Phil Spencer, unusually for him, had one of his bad days, only amassing 25 points against good scoring from his playing competitors. Len Wright managed to close the gap a little by finishing with 30 points, only one behind the local player and well ahead of their Lyme Regis opponent.

Following on, Glyn Hewitt also played a solid round and beat his playing partners convincingly with 31 points.

Colston Herbert also had a good game compared to the Lyme Regis player and managed to match the local Axe Cliff player with 29 points, as did Malcolm Couldwell coming in with a good 32 points.

The final Sidmouth player Steve Nunn scored well with 33 points, but was unable to keep up with the Lyme Regis star player who scored 38 points.

The end result was a very good start for Sidmouth, who narrowly beat the home team with a total of 246 points. Axe Cliff scored 245 points with Lyme Regis coming in with 230 points.

The next match in the series will be at Sidmouth in December, when the home team hope and expect to extend their lead in the series.