THURLESTONE Golf Club ladies had a good day for their Wednesday competition of a Club Bowmaker stableford and had 29 entries.

They played in threes with two scores to count. The winning team were Pam Adams, Sue Ansley & Margaret Ryan with 67 points, from Jane Mason, Hayley Pepperrell and Jane Walker with 65 points. Third were Janice Croke, Wendy Stewart & Jane Mahood (24) with 63 points. There were five birdie twos.

Last weekend, Sally Cahill narrowly beat Martha Massingham on the 18th hole in the final of the Murray Smith Winter Knockout.

The Winter Foursomes Knockout was another tight match with Heather Spencer & Jan Brooking winning on the 18th hole against Sally Huntley & Irene Lowry.

On Saturday morning, 78 members played in a shotgun start Eva Challenge Shield Competition. The winners were Neil McKay and Owen Rees with 41 points, ahead of Ken Riley & Heather Spencer and Tom Barlow & Peter Eva. There were nine birdie twos.

After the prizegiving, new captains Ken Riley and Heather Spencer, Martha Massingham ( junior vice-captain) and Michael Croft (seniors captain) went back to the first tee for the “drive in” where members pay for squares where they think the balls will land. The charity they are supporting this year is the RNLI Salcombe Lifeboat.

Dartmouth ladies had a fun team competition, with the possibility of plenty of points on offer.

In teams of three, the first six holes gave triple points to everyone, double points for two on the next six and single points for one player on the final six.

Following a nasty encounter with a glass door, Jan Cousins had to withdraw, leaving one team a player short, so Karen Oldrieve was nominated to have her points counting for both teams.

With the wind and rain getting heavier, common sense prevailed and it became a nin-hole competition

Karen scored well to the point that she had the honour of being in both the first and second placed team!

1st: Chris Mayer, Chris Mushens & Karen Oldrieve 110 pts

2nd: Chris Aresti, Shelley Durrans & Karen Oldrieve 100 pts

The Dartmouth course ladies played a red and blue tee competition, with triple points on the blue tee holes. This caused a bit of confusion with the scoring but that was soon resolved over coffee. With equal common sense, they also stopped after nine holes.

1st: Barbara Dally 28 pts

2nd: Sharon Jones 26 pts

3rd: Kate Merriam 25 pts

The men’s midweek competition was a 4Ball team format with two scores to count, so the expectation was for all teams to reach at least 72 points. Sadly, the expectation was far greater than the actual, with only two teams managing to reach or exceed target.

All but one of the teams managed a good 6-point first hole but after that, although there were only two blobs across the entire field, there were plenty of one and two pointers to drag the overall score down.

1st: Steve Atkins, Gary Bonser, Tim Cronin & Barrie O’Shea 78 pts

2nd: Rob Barrett, Andy Birss, Paul Brown & John Oldrieve 72 pts

Conditions seemed perfect for the weekend Mixed Stableford but a cold, blustery wind made for a challenging game - many players looked as if they had played 36 rather than 18 holes.

Although the wind strengthened during the day, the later starters couldn’t blame it for their poor performance as the top placed players were in both the first and last tee times.

Adrian Rendle had a dream start with a birdie on the first and played steadily throughout the round, but was beaten by a tremendous round from Joel Jordan, including a 23-point back nine. Joel is relatively new to competition golf and it’s great to see him playing so well.

Other highlights from the day included the only two from Dean Raspin (fifth hole) and Matt Young having two 4-point birdies, though sadly they didn’t get him a top spot.

Division One:

1st: Joel Jordan 39 pts

2nd: Adrain Rendle 37 pts

Division Two:

1st: Barrie O’Shea 36 pts

2nd: Tim Cronin 35 pts

The Valiant Cup, the winter mixed knockout competition, reached its conclusion this week, with a hard-fought final. Congratulations to Chris Mayer and Gordon Kidd, who defeated Shelley Durrans and Dave Sparks on the first extra hole.

The senior Dartmouth golfers enjoyed a competitive and entertaining start to the week with a pairs event played within a Four Ball Better Ball Stableford format on Monday 30 March.

Played from the blue tees on the Championship Course, competitors teed off in groups of four while forming pairs based on sign-up order.

Each player competed off 85% of their course handicap, with the best Stableford score on each hole counting towards the team total. With 18 pairs in contention, and typical winning scores usually in the early 40s, there was plenty to play for.

Despite a strong north-westerly wind causing challenging conditions—particularly across the exposed back nine—scoring remained impressively high, reflecting some excellent golf throughout the field.

Leading the way were the formidable pairing of Gary Bonser and Tim Cronin (23/17), closely matched by Tony Hall and Paul Marels (20/19), and Gordon Holmes alongside Desmond Graham (22/17), with Graham producing arguably his best performance of the year. The competition proved extremely tight, with just a single point separating the top four places.

In the end, it was Bonser and Cronin who edged ahead to claim top spot with an excellent 40 points.

Birdie ‘twos’ were recorded by Graham Burton at the third and John Oldrieve at the fifth.

Thanks, as always, go to competition organiser Nigel Osborne, who expertly managed the scoring and data.

There will be no competition next week due to the Easter break. Play resumes the following week, alongside the first match of the season against Thurlestone.