League team captain Ian Bright took a strong team to Honiton for an East Devon League fixture, and will have been feeling optimistic as the early matches got under way, writes Terry Carter.

League team captain Ian Bright took a strong team to Honiton for an East Devon League fixture, and will have been feeling optimistic as the early matches got under way. Lewis Perry and David Bater were first off in their match against Honiton's Ford and Bumpstead, who had to settle for a half against our pair. Duncan Taylor was playing his first match at Honiton since leaving to join Sidmouth and, with John Jones, he celebrated the event with a win to put Sids one up. Club vice captain Paddy Tallon takes his responsibilities for the development of Sidmouth's juniors seriously, and this week he decided to show James Winchester how to lose heavily with good grace. A 4 and 3 defeat brought the fixture back to all square, but no doubt helped in character building. In the fourth match out Marc Shoobridge and Fred Faulkner stopped the rot with a well-earned draw against Simon Martin and Alex Cave. One of Honiton's juniors and son of Adrian, the club professional, Alex currently plays off a 13 handicap rapidly heading south, so a good result for the visitors. The last remaining match featured Ian Bright and Paul Hitchcock, so Ian will have been looking for something from this one. However, Marker and Dimond won convincingly by 4 and 3 to give the home side a narrow win.Result: Honiton 4, Sidmouth 3Monday StablefordThe club's new 9 Hole Competition on Friday night has still to build up a head of steam, but once everyone realises the special clubhouse attractions after play, I am sure it will. In the meantime the Monday Stableford goes from strength to strength, with almost 40 competitors this week. This latest was won by John Horn with 42 points playing off a 23 handicap, two better than Martyn White playing off 5. I did hear Martyn's name mentioned in the clubhouse last night as a mature player who came up through the junior ranks and is playing at the top of his form at the moment. A bit like Ryan Giggs last Sunday really!There were another six golfers on 39 points relying on countback to determine the order. Luke Sheppard took the edge over Matthew Fudge followed by Martin Geddis in fourth position. Duncan Taylor, Sam Barnard and Nicholas Gingell had to settle for fourth, fifth and sixth place due to countback, so presumably Mr Gingell got off to a flyer but lacked staying power.Results Top 20 Points Handicap: J Horn 42 23 M White 40 5 L Sheppard 39 17 M Fudge 39 25 M J Geddis 39 21 D K Taylor 39 5 S Barnard 39 19 N Gingell 39 5 D Pepperell 38 9 J Jones 38 7 J P Lee 38 5 D Burgess 37 5 P Sexton 37 20 M Gosling 36 8 D Bater 36 5 D Fensom 35 14 I Bright 35 7 D Henshall 34 20 M Finn 34 22 J Dunn 34 7 Grandfathers CupOn Tuesday, those of us prepared to own up to it played in this annual Stableford competition. With it comes the prospect of the winner receiving the trophy on Annual Prizegiving Night, and the dubious pleasure of having a packed clubhouse study the laughter lines and subtle hints of grey to confirm he is certainly old enough. The tee was reserved until 11am, but I was alarmed to see the club manager flagging down passing cars in Cotmaton Road in the afternoon. Apparently he was asking if anyone would like to play for the Grandfathers Cup in a specially extended tee time. Despite this scurrilous campaign my score remained good enough to win the cup, narrowly beating Phil Beer on countback. Previous winner Mike Flattley was third ahead of Chris Ashley and David Raistrick also courtesy of a countback.