THE seniors’ section enjoyed their first competition since the restart and the top of the leaderboard was tightly packed with just two shots separating the first nine players in a field of 127.

Dave Braithwaite, a 19-handicapper, rattled off three consecutive pars (13th-15th) to take control and despite a wobble over the last two holes, he still had a shot in hand thanks to his 40 points.

“I played really consistent golf,” said Dave.

“Unfortunately the most memorable incident was on the last hole where, after a bit of a wait on the tee, I tried to hit the ball too hard only to see it disappearing over the trees on the right resulting in a lost ball.”

Dave takes the lead in the summer series of seniors’ stablefords – for the Goddard Cup – in which the best three scores from the five qualifying events count.

With a large influx of new senior members swelling the section to more than 200, this series is going to prove tougher than ever to win.

Nick J Brown, Brian Whittaker and Tony Killick, all on 39 points, followed the leader home, separated on countback.

Of the nine players who scored 2s, special credit to 22-handicapper Alastair McKeeman who bagged birdies on both the 11th and 13th.

RESULTS

1st – Dave Braithwaite 40pts; 2nd – Nick J Brown 39pts; 3rd – Brian Whittaker 39pts; 4th – Tony Killick 39pts; 5th – Dave Warden 38pts; 6th Bob Allen 38pts.