Bigbury Golf Club

Last Tuesday Bigbury hosted the fourth Hostelries Challenge in glorious sunny conditions.

Teams of three representing pubs, clubs, restaurants and hotels from all over the South Hams competed for the trophy, a unique beer hand pump commissioned by the St Austell Brewery.

The competition has had excellent support right from its first year by St Austell and Carlsberg, who again came up trumps in supplying a fantastic prize table, including copious amounts of both Carls­berg lager and Tribute bitter cases – the winners won their height in beer!

Adam Burgess, St Austell’s business development manager for the area, said: ‘It’s a great event every year, we are delighted to be able to support it and for me personally it is a pleasure to invite many of my best customers and meet them in a different environment.

‘This has now be­come a regular feature in the golfing diary and we look forward to seeing it continue to grow in numbers and stat­ure.’

The date for next year is already set – Tuesday, September 12. All landlords, please note this date early in your diaries and get your golfing regulars geared up.

The winning team was from Ivybridge Rugby Club, led by their president, Alan Knight, with two strong young players, Rory Wakeling and Kyle Langdon. They scored 83 points, with the best two scores counting on each hole.

One point behind came the Cider Press team from Torquay – Landlord, Dave Hind­ley, Ady Byng and Andy Coxon.

In third with 79 points was a combined Bigbury Golf Club and Carlsberg team comprising local players, James Toogood and Jeremy Andrews pairing up with Carls­berg promotions manager Maurice Sweeny.

The individual prizes also went to Rory and Kyle, both with 38 points, with Rory coming out top with a better back nine. Jeremy Andrews was third with 37.

Director of golf Nigel Blenkarne sum­med up a successful day for both Bigbury Golf Club and St Austell Brewery by presenting the eye-catching trophy to Alan Knight.

David Moulding won the Secretary’s Cup at the weekend with a very fine 43 points, off his 10 handicap (now reduced to nine).

Arwyn Jones was runner-up with 41, followed by an on-form Paul Kingwell with 38 and Julie Leach, also with 38. This competition is one of the few when the ladies and men compete together.

With Amanda Bur­chell and Irene Lowry in sixth and seventh respectively it was good to see three ladies in the top seven.

Paul Kingwell continued his fine form the following day when he won the 36-hole final of the Scratch Cup against James Mitchell – this gives Paul both the main scratch events of the year adding to his club championship victory in June.

The final was played at a very high standard with Paul making 10 birdies in total and James eight plus an eagle and Paul only won on the last green – well played to both of them.