WHAT a result for Jack Green, the 2024 Bigbury Golf Club men’s captain, when on Wednesday February 5, he had the pleasure of presenting a cheque for £1005.40 to the RNLI.

He is pictured alongside two Bigbury GC members, who gratefully received the donation. From left to right, Peter Bennett (Salcombe crew), Paul Weedon (Dartmouth treasurer) and Jack.

Jack reports that he chose the RNLI as his charity for 2024 as he felt this was very apt as it coincided with the RNLI’s 200th Anniversary and followed on from Bigbury’s 100th Anniversary the year before.

The money was raised in several ways. Notably as part of his “Captain’s Day” last July, competition entry fees, and the three bunkers around the 7th hole being nominated as donation bunkers. Also, after their round, visitors whose balls “visited” these hazards were invited to make a donation in the RNLI collection box in the clubhouse.

Finally, Jack adds that as well as being members of Bigbury Golf Club, Paul and Peter are also RNLI staff.

Paul and Peter thanked Jack for choosing the RNLI as his 2024 charity and advised the money raised will be divided between the Dart and Salcombe Stations.

Congratulations to Jack on raising such a good amount of money which was welcomed by this local Charity.

The ladies’ Greensomes Stableford was able to be played as scheduled on Saturday January 25. Played in pairs, the two-player team will each take a shot at the start of every hole, the best of the two drives is selected and the second ball picked up.

Ruth Bickle and Angie Newman were the winning pair with a score of 37 Stableford points, finishing ahead of Pip Fisher & Cathy Harrington (34pts) and Janet Burton & Lorette Logie (33pts). There were no birdie twos in this competition.

The men’s competition the next day was a victim of the weather and unfortunately couldn’t be played.

SUNDAY, February 9 was a very cold but dry day at Thurlestone GC with the men’s and ladies' Stableford competition attracting 47, entries of which only three were ladies.

Junior Martha Massingham (21) came out on top with an excellent score of 41 points, she beat Tony Adams (4) with 39 points. Tony was ahead of Nick Clayson (21) and David Doyle (17) only by countback as they both also scored 39pts. Well done to Martha, who is already in the Devon Golf under-18 team.

There were 14 birdie twos and David Eva had two of them- another junior Aiden Mulligan also got two and Mike Yeoman also got two of them, congratulations to everyone!

42 ladies played on Wednesday in the 3-ball Texas Scramble in very cold but sunny conditions. The winners were Trish Gledhill, Bridget Lafferty & Mary Swan with a score of 65 from Pam Adams, Jackie Hawes & Heather Spencer with 67.

In third place were the team of Sally Cahill, Nikki Smith & Fiona Turner with 68 and fourth were Sally Huntley, Judith Lungmuss & Barbara Smith also with 68. There were seven birdie twos scored, so congratulations to them.

The Rye Green-some Competition for the men on Sunday was a variation of the normal greensomes. Players have to decide who should play the second shot on the odds and evens holes.

There were 36 players and the winners were Wilf Cunningham & Ashley Pigott with 41 points, from second place Jason Armstrong & Ronald Plumridge with 38 points. In third place were David Eva & Steve Inch also with 38 points.

There were four birdie twos, Dave Eva and Steve Inch got two of them and Martin Oakes-Monger and Mark Chapman got one on the 6th hole.

AT Dartmouth GC, a combination of the Foursomes format and a bleak weather forecast resulted in a very small field for the Doris Willes qualifier.

Inevitably, the scores were low but they were identical at the end and after back nine and back six count back; finally on back three Chris Mushens and Jules Vincent proved to be the winners from Chris Aresti and Shelley Durrans.

The men were fortunate to have good weather the following day for their Wednesday Foursomes competition. No excitement was reported, so the Nett scores are as follows:

1st John Cousins & John Garner

2nd Rob Barrett & John Oldrieve

3rd Andy Birss & Paul Brown

There were two competitions at the weekend, with the Mixed Stableford the first to play.

It was great to see Dave Brooking back playing competitively and scoring well with pars and birdies. His final score of 32 put him in third place behind Gary Widdicombe, whose first ten holes were rather mixed before he settled to score steadily and finish with 34 points.

Robin Steer was having one of those days where his golf was just working for him. His back nine would have been blob-free if he hadn’t lost count of his shots on seventeen and picked his ball up before his playing partners could stop him. It didn’t matter as his score of 39 was well ahead of second.

The fifth round of the men’s Winter League followed and although some pairs have withdrawn because of injuries, it is still well supported.

Interesting shot of the day has to go to Sam Churchill. It would be something of an understatement to say that his drive on the thirteenth was wayward - it was almost pin high but unfortunately had ventured beyond his own fairway and that of the sixteenth and was close to the third fairway on the Dartmouth course. A beautiful pitch shot over the tees on the sixteenth found the green and although he didn’t get the putt, he did manage two points for the team.

Top scores went to Edd Mitchell and Matt Young - they shared 44 points with Rob Haddy and Pete Hannafird, but their 25-point back-nine edged the win.

On completion of the seven rounds, the best four of five scores are used to determine the top four teams and play a semi-final and final; the current standings are:

1st Rob Haddy & Pete Hannaford - 164

2nd Keith Sexton & Mark Scrivener - 160

3rd Edd Mitchell & Matt Young - 160

4th Paul Brown & Jeremy Wiltshire – 156.