Worlebury Golf Club past captains held their winter meeting, with a 15-hole competition followed by dinner.

THE Worlebury past captains assembled for their winter meeting, a 15-hole competition followed by dinner served up by chef, Andy Purdy and his staff.

After dinner, captain-elect for 2015, Peter Phillips, announced his nomination for his vice-captain for the forthcoming season. Local businessman Paul Lintern is his choice and this was well received by the captains.

Paul has been a prominent member in recent years, serving on committees and being the driving force behind the highly-successful biennial summer balls. The nomination was announced to members in the clubhouse, the council having first been informed.

The captain’s competition was won by Dougie Woods, who generously donated his winnings to the captain’s charity, the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, which was augmented on the night with a few fines.

The clubhouse was packed for the popular winter quiz with 20 teams taking part under the scrutiny of quizmaster Dougie Woods. Chairman Keri Allchurch’s team prevailed once more, narrowly beating the team jointly skipped by Gerry Miles and John Wright, with Kevin Fudge and Pauline Smith’s team third and David Mellor’s fourth.

WESTON seniors’ section, together with many club members, gathered to pay tribute to last year’s senior captain, Mike Hill. He will be greatly missed by all, on and off the course.

The ladies’ sixth and final Stableford qualifier of the year was won by Zena Balcombe with 36 points, Kath Farrant came in second place with 33, who played on Saturday.

The weather, in contrast for ladies’ day on Tuesday was wet and bitterly cold, but Wendy Homer completed her round coming in with 31 points to put her in third place.

CHRISTMAS came early at Wedmore with the seniors playing their shotgun competition.

They were playing a bowmaker for meat and drink prizes. Shot of the day came from John Viney, who holed his tee-shot on the 11th which made for a merry time in the clubhouse afterwards.

However, this was still not good enough to win. Together with team-mates Alasdair McDonald and Dennis Howard they came second, scoring 74 points over 15 holes.

Jim Crick, having become captain only two weeks before, seemed to be enjoying the role, as along with Ian Hollands and John Sim, they accumulated 76 points to clinch victory by two points.

John Bennett and John Hogan relied on a mystery partner to help clinch third place with 74 points. Fourth went to Roy Peck, Philip Springfield and David Adams with 71, while Tony Biggs, Terry Simpson and Colin Clegg were two points further back to take the last of the wine.

The ladies were due to play for Christmas puddings in their competition, but some seasonal fog early in the morning caused it to be postponed.

Wedmore winners Jim Crick, Ian Hollands and John Sim, with organiser Malcolm Timmis.

THE final Texas scramble of the calendar year was contested for the Grumpy Trophy at Brean.

The format is always a popular one with the members and a good sized entry turned out on the last day of autumn to compete. The winners were the formidable team of Phil Hodgson, Dave Porter, Simon Baunton and Steven Eley, who scored a gross 60, which equated to a nett 55.6.

This was 0.5 of a shot ahead of the nearest challengers, who were made up of Brian Read, Tony Groves, Dave Lockwood and club captain Paul Jones. Third place was taken by Murray Parsons, Russell Shaw, Stewart Garrett and Gordy Wheelaghan on 56.3.

The seniors’ Christmas ransome saw a good number turn up for the event which sees three different formats used over the round. For the 15 holes the seniors played, it was five holes each for Texas scramble, greensomes and foursomes.

Seniors’ captain-elect Bob Hurrell teamed up with Barrie Tucker to post a winning score of 54.4, giving them a healthy margin over the rest. Runners-up on 55.7 were Ken Ponter and Tony Tissington, while Charlie Hastie and Barrie Yearsley took third on 57.0.

The same format, although over the full 18 holes, was used by the main club as Paul McLanaghan and Martyn Cahill were the winners of a competitive Christmas ransome.

The leading seven pairs were only separated by just two shots and a four-way countback was needed to decided the minor placings.

The winners didn’t have to worry about that as their nett 67 was top of the pile as Cahill recorded his second win in the Christmas competitions this year.

Second place went to early starters Roger Vaughan and Kevin Davies on 67.3, as they avoided the quartet which returned 68.3. The Broom cousins, Dan and Tom, were the best of those scores on the back nine and took the third place prize.