Everyone held their breath as they approached the Axe Cliff course on Wednesday after heavy rain on Monday and Tuesday nights, writes Dave Bruce.

The overriding fear was the course would be closed, but all was well, for our amazing course was indeed still open and only requiring three temporary greens and so the Centenary Niblick Stableford competition went ahead.

Despite the challenging conditions, the scores were good and play was closely fought.

The overall winner was Margaret Kenchington with 34 points with captain Caroline Bond close behind on 33 points.

The battle for third was equally close with last year’s captain Jo Donmall and Pauline Willis fighting it out with both scoring 30 points, but Jo taking the honour on countback.

On Thursday there was a friendly match with Sidmouth ladies, originally planned to be at Sidmouth. Unfortunately, the course at Sidmouth was still closed in the morning, but their team kindly agreed to come to Axe Cliff so the match duly went ahead. The format was greensomes, apart from the two captains who had a friendly head-to-head together.

A very enjoyable game was had by all and closely fought with Axe Cliff eventually coming out the victors by four games to one.