IN THE absence of his leader, John Bainbridge attempted to build on last week’s success in another away match, this time at Dawlish Warren, writes Terry Carter.

First off and partnering David Roberts, he had an unsettling start when it took until the third hole before he managed to tee off and putt out with the same ball! However, with Roberts playing steady golf, the pair hung in the contest until the closing stages when they eventually fell to a 3 and 1 defeat on the seventeenth green.

In the next game Ian Brown and David Bromage also lost their point on the seventeenth, but not before Bromage put a bunker shot 40 yards into the hole for an eagle on the eleventh, and followed this with a birdie on the twelfth.

David Lane and Charles Warren also stumbled on the seventeenth hole to lose their point as did George Hudec and Tony Weatherburn, leaving the Sidmouth captain wondering if the penultimate hole was jinxed!

However, Sidmouth golfers know full well that the game is usually a contest between their skill and the opposition players good fortune, and Hudec and Weatherburn were apparently treated harshly when Roy Beddows of Dawlish Warren hit a ten yard drive, put his third shot 40 yards past the green then thinned his chip in for a birdie – it can be a cruel game can golf!

Bob Cook and Tony Willson only managed to break the sequence of defeats on the seventeenth by going 4 down on the sixteenth, but an impressive 6 and 5 victory for Barry Jones and Roy Smith avoided the dreaded whitewash as Sidmouth succumbed to a 5-1 defeat.