THURLESTONE GC’s ladies’ 11-hole competition on Wednesday had 36 entries and the winner was Gill Durden with 27 points, reports Liz Line.

Second went to Hayley Pepperrell and third to Maggie Best, both with 25 points, and 4th was Sheila Fairley (24pts).

They then stayed on after the competition to attend the Ladies AGM where the new lady captain Fiona Turner was welcomed by the retiring lady captain Pam Adams (pictured), with 50 ladies in attendance.

Pam welcomed everyone and reported on her year, with teams in the Devon Sheelah Creasy, Devon League and Devon President’s tournaments.

Pam handed over the captaincy to Fiona Turner who has decided that her charity for the year will be The Kingsbridge Age UK, who are based at the Kingsbridge Care hub.

Staying on the ladies’ committee are Liz Stewart and Heather Spencer but Barbara Smith and Janet Richardson are retiring from the committee. New committee members are Nikki Smith, Judith Lungmuss and Jan Brooking. We would like to wish Fiona and her committee every success when she takes over officially at the Club AGM on Thursday, March 27.

Pam decided to run an Order of Merit Competition for 2024 to include all the nonqualifying competitions throughout the year with points awarded to those in the top six places. This included all Wednesday competitions except medal and Stablefords.

Firstly, there was a prize for the person with the neatest card which was Wendy Laud.

The OOM winners were 3rd, Judith Lungmuss. 80 points. 2nd Heather Spencer, 88 Points and 1st, Jan Brooking with 90 points. All the winners were presented with a beautiful rosette and the top 3 won vouchers for Marks and Spencers.

The Tuesday seniors Greensome competition was played in good weather and 24 entered. Grant Dinsdale & Phil Fish prevailed with 40 points, ahead of Mike Day & Chris Oldershaw (40pts), Steve Gallagher & Bill Hutchison (40pts) and Garth Gregory & Owen Rees (39pts).

There were only three birdie twos scored by Nick Baker & Malcolm Strang, Bill Campbell & Paul Dunne, and Steve Gallagher & Bill Hutchison, so congratulations to them.

On Sunday, there were 38 entries for the 3-man Waltz team event. Trevor Greenwood, Robert Hyde & Daniel Cunningham scored 77 points to edge out Roger Brownill, Christopher Meares & Malcolm Strang (76pts) and Stephen Pike, David Eva & Peter Eva (71pts).

There were a good number of birdie twos scored by Dale Cunningham, Jonathan Doyle, Dave Eva, James Mitchell, Tony Paul, Paul Turner and Dan Wellard, so congratulations to them.

70 MEN took to Bigbury Golf Course for the mid-week Stableford on Wednesday, 6, writes Liz Line.

19 twos were bagged and there were two divisions needed with the results very close come the end.

Division One was led by Paul Vaggers (38pts), Peter Hamon (37pts) and Jon Wiley (37pts) whilst in Division Two, Mick Hendley (39pts) beat out Tony Hobbs (36pts) and Phil Nile (36pts).

The following day, the ladies played their Stableford and this proved to be a very close competition as well with countback called in action.

Nikki Kidd and Amanda Burchell scored 35 points with Nikki winning on countback and Ruth Bickle, Helen Dinsdale & Margaret Taylor scored 33pts. It was a good competition for Nikki as she bagged a two with Vannesa Mabelle contributing the other.

The club is now gearing up for its season, including the annual commemorative competition, The Centenary Coleman Flame.

DARTMOUTH GC ladies were glad to welcome back Lorna Elliott to play a game, reports Chris Mushens.

She partnered Chris and Alison White and as her handicap is much higher these days, she contributed plenty of birdies. Their 79-point tally earned them second behind Chris Aresti, Jodie Kenyon, Chris Mayer and Mary Thompson.

The men’s midweek competition was a 2-man scramble and the range of scores indicated that some teams were scrambling more than others!

Steve Atkins & John Thompson showed how to do it with a string of pars and birdies and a final score of 64, eight under par. Close behind were Paul Durrant & Robin Steer on 65 and Paul Sexton & Keith Scrivener on 69.

Robin Steer (35pts) and Rob Penfold (34pts) led Division One in the mixed Stableford with Gary Widdicombe (35pts) and Barrie O’Shea (34pts) out in front in Division Two.

The seventh round of the Winter League brought the conclusion of the first stage, with it now moving to knock-out. Kevin Hoare and Colin Weedon were not in contention for the knockout but finished the league stage in style with 39 points.

League leaders Pete Hannaford and Rob Haddy are one of only two teams to play in every round, the other duo being Keith Sexton and Mark Scrivener. First will play fourth and second faces third in the knockout.

1st: Pete Hannaford & Rob Haddy, 171 pts

2nd: Edd Mitchell & Matt Young, 165 pts

3rd: Ian Metchette & Alan Foot, 160 pts

4th: Keith Sexton & Mark Scrivener, 160 pts

The Valiant Cup, the winter mixed knockout, also came to a conclusion. In a match played on the friendliest of terms and with plenty of humour thrown in, Beccy Barrett & Dave Nicholls beat Brian & Chris Mushens 3&2. Congratulations on the first trophy of the year.

Finally to Dartmouth’s seniors and they played a 3-2-1 competition off of the Championship course’s red tees on Monday, March 17, writes Gordon Holmes.

Teams of three or four players assembled with three scores to count on the first, two on the second, one on the third, back to three on the fourth and so on.

The last time this competition was held, last October, Team Mitchell triumphed with 79 points. 11 teams were in today’s mix with holes four and ten looking like the key multiple scorers.

A bitterly cold day was in the offing upon arrival and the raw biting wind had shades of last December’s conditions.

Early birds fronted by Geoffrey Jewell carded the best of the day with an excellent 77 points with seven-pointers at holes one, thirteen & seventeen. These underpinned their fine round.

Mario Aresti & his usual cabal were second just two points adrift. Nevertheless, a fine performance from the quartet.

In summary, it is axiomatic that teams of four always do better than teams of three and today underlined that point with those teams with fewest members occupying the bottom three places.

Competition result:

1st- Geoffrey Jewell, Colin Cooper, Graham Burton & George Reeve. 77pts

2nd- Mario Aresti, David Sparks, Michael Whitelaw & Andrew Dix. 75pts

3rd- Paul Marels, Keith Sexton, Rob Barrett & John Oldrieve. 72pts

Birdie two were scored by Andrew Dix at the third, Geoffrey Jewell & Peter Hannaford on hole five and John Oldrieve & Philip Brooking at the last.

Competition guru Nigel Osborne counted them all back. Many thanks to him. Next week sees a greensomes event.