WHILST Dartmouth GC’s ladies were forced inside for coffee by the rain, the sunshine returned for the men’s midweek stableford.

Steve Maris continued his run of good form with a Division One win with 38 points.

A birdie on the tenth had suggested a better score for the back nine than the front, but although that didn’t materialise, a par on eighteen did give 19 points on each nine.

Then, a trio of players on 34 points followed, Dean Raspin taking second, then Andy Birss in third and Steve Blackie in fourth, who was undone by blobs on holes 10 and 12.

Division Two wasn’t as clear cut too John Garner topping the pile with 39 points.

Paul Stubbs matched his 21-point haul on the way out but returning in 17 had him one adrift from John. Bruce Blackie was in third with 35 points.

The club hosted the Carlsberg Open at the weekend and welcomed players from a number of clubs across England. The winning team was a father and son partnership, with Rob Haddy inviting his son Tom (St Mellion) to join him.

Their winning score of 44 points was well ahead of the chasing groups. Visitors from Wharton Park in Worcestershire Robert Sidaway and Ian Sorrell scored well on all holes but a couple of one pointers gave them 41 points and second place.

Countback was needed to separate the next teams, both on 40 points, with the visitors from Dorset, Chris Murray (Sherborne) and Giles Foster (Bulbury Woods) beating the home team of Barrie O’Shea and Steve Atkins. Barrie and Steve had their best holes on the front nine whilst Chris and Giles scored 23pts on the back nine.

The last mixed friendly of the season was played at Bovey Tracey in a Greensomes Stableford. An unusual format, which didn’t bring the best out of the Dartmouth team! Many thanks to Chris Mayer for organising the matches - hopefully we’ll have an end-of-season fun competition to finish things off.

Moving onto the seniors and their competition also took on an innovative stableford format with a free choice of individual tees.

Players could add two their score on the gold tees, one on the whites, nothing on the blues and minus one on the reds.

31 competitors took on this challenge, one which tends to see the big-hitters thrive.

In drizzly conditions, maestro Gary Bonser was up for the test and carded a superb 49 points to take the Division One spoils. He was followed by Dean Raspin on 48 points and Michael Whitelaw on 47.

Tony King led Division Two on 50 points with Barrie O’Shea just one behind him.

Many thanks go to Nigel Osborne who worked out manually the overall additional scores based on the normal computer assessments.

There were just two twos, achieved by Roy Baldwin and Tony King.

Elsewhere, Mark Mitchell clinched the Blight Trophy by overcoming Robert Wotton in the final.

The South Devon Senior’s League came to its conclusion on Thursday, September 10.

Dartmouth put up a spirited display with some excellent performances and finished a creditable fourth place but sadly remain at the foot of the league overall. Best wishes to winners Torquay as they move into finals days at Churston later this month.

Next week sees the 17th playing of the John Gutteridge memorial tournament with all proceeds going to Devon Air Ambulance.