Sidmouth Golf Club’s Emerton Court Team won the home leg of their match against a strong team from Tiverton 4 matches to 1 and will now play the away leg next week to determine which team advances to the third round of this countywide matchplay knockout competition, writes John Rockey

Team captain Peter Spooner had to make some changes from the team which played in the last round, mainly due to the unavailability of club captain Dave Hoare. Peter decided that the first two pairings would be unaffected and partnered Chris Ashley in the leading pair to an emphatic 5 and 4 win.

Not to be outdone, Trevor Kerridge and Pat McCormack went one better and beat their opponents 6 and 4 in a game of low scoring.

Clearly things were going well at this stage but, as usual in golf, something comes along to reverse any feeling of security and this was the case when the third pairing of Doug Goodall and Merv Anthony were soundly beaten 6 and 5.

Merv, who had been drafted into the team, developed a leg injury early on in the match which greatly affected his normal play so that the pair couldn’t hold their long-hitting opponents.

Whilst the first three matches were won by large margins, the fourth match was a closely-fought affair, with Bob Webber and John Rockey eventually winning 3 and 1, but not before two lengthy putts had to be holed on the 15th and 16th holes to grab halves when losses of both holes seemed likely.

The final pairing of Alec Salway and Bob Welsman were back together again after an experimental split and, in spite of Alec having to listen to Bob’s constant advice on club selection and lines of putts, he managed to ignore most of it sufficiently for the pair to come home with a resounding 5 and 4 win.

The team will now go to Tiverton trying to win the one and a half matches needed to progress to the next round.