A POPULAR event at Bransford Golf Club during the festive season is the Escape From Christmas team competition.

Thirty-eight took part in the stableford with each player allowed to use only three clubs and a putter.

The groups went out as three balls with the two best scores to count on each hole.

It was tight at the end after the players endured difficult conditions of frost, frozen greens and lingering mist.

Count-back determined Dick Bettsworth, Graham Wilks and Rob Lawrence had secured first place from Rob Wetton, John Burrow and June Atkinson after both teams collected 72 points.

Bettsworth played with a hybrid four, seven iron and a pitching wedge and Wilks used a four rescue, eight iron and a sand wedge, while Lawrence used five wood, sand iron and a lob wedge.

Third spot on 70 went to Brian Corfield, Dave Ryall and Roy Mayo with Bob McGrath, Colin Weedon, and Andy Falconer fourth on 68.

The duo of John Phillips and Alan Wallcroft, the only two ball of the morning after their third player failed to arrive, claimed fifth on 66 with help from a drawn phantom.

The two nearest the pin prizes went to Neil McCallum on the fifth and Corfield on the 15th.

The competition, organised by Mike Kemp and Mike Abbott, was also a charity fundraiser in memory of the late Dave Lumsden, a former club and seniors’ captain at Bransford who died in early December.

It raised £180 via a raffle for St Richard’s Hospice.