Thirty members competed in, and supported, the club’s Charity Stableford, which was held on a wet and windy Friday, writes Dave Bruce.

Seniors’ captain Mick Swann took on the early shift on his own, as captains do, starting at 7.30am to sort out his raffle and prizes, concerned whether anyone would brave the weather.

He need not have worried as the rest eventually turned up and gave tremendous support to his Charity Day, bringing in additional prizes and buying raffle tickets to see if they could win them back again.

After selling many tickets he then made his way to the first tee at 8.52am. That’s when Egg Man, Paul Curtin, recovering from a minor eye operation, and so unable to play for a couple of weeks, took over as chief raffle sales manager doing a grand job helping Mick achieve a grand total of £126.20! Unfortunately, the lucky winner of the novelty ‘golf-themed inscription toilet seat’ generously offered by Geoff Hughes, decided to decline his prize and kindly gave it back for a future raffle. What’s wrong with the inscription ‘A big fat old golfer sits here’? A kind lady member of the bar staff later snapped it up for £5, which Mick put towards the raffle in the evening at our quiz, which again was a success run by Bob and Alison Cook with some 50 people attending. Back to the golf and, despite the awful wet and cold conditions, somehow Brian Thompson won again, but this time on his own with a fantastic 38 points. I don’t know what he is on, but can I have some as well? Leighton Morgan also played well to take second with 35 points, with Rob Grove continuing his fine form to take third spot with 34, but only on countback from that lovable Welshman, Dai Evans. It was good to see Nigel Garwood back, and he got a stunning two, as did Steve Bond. Everyone was talking about Steve’s two. Having got to the 18th tee completely soaked through, he confidently drove his ball with a high iron off the tee towards the green. His grip on the club finally failed him and it flew over the trees onto the back of the 17th!

His playing partners followed the line of the club, but had no idea where the ball ended up.

To his surprise, it was discovered at the back of the 18th green from where, of course, he rolled his putt into the hole for a remarkable, but nonetheless richly deserved two.

The ladies played the third of their four home Devon League matches when they took on a very strong team from Ilfracombe.

Once again the sun shone on the righteous and it was a bright and warm day, but, sadly, the Axe Cliff ladies won only two of their matches and they also halved one, which gave them five points, while the visitors banked 10.5 points. Janet Dack very kindly stepped in to play at the last minute as one member fell ill. The weather changed on Wednesday with the early frost, but relatively calm and cool afterwards.

The competition was the Centenary Niblick, being a stableford cup event, but, for some unknown reason, everyone plays off 36! Not surprisingly, there were some good scores with Jo Donmall, a former lady captain, edging last year’s captain, Caroline Bond, with 37 points against 34. Vice-captain Barbara Cummings had to be content with third spot on 32 points, but only on countback from Paula Heasman.