Greetham Valley golf: Holden retains handsome order of merit lead

On Saturday, sunshine allowed round eight of the Winter Order of Merit to be played with a good run of high scores and more than 16 players beating par.

The in-form Martin Thwaites won the day with 43 points, edging out Craig Allan by a point after both roared out of the blocks with 22 points on the outward nine holes.

Third place went to Micky Fish whose great round was halted by a visit to the water on the final hole to card 42 points.

In the overall table, Russ Holden (160pts) still has a good lead over Tony Mould (133), Darren Haughton (132), Chris Tapsell (130) and Nick Cunnington (129).

* On Sunday the weather turned completely and a cold driving wind coupled with heavy rain showers turned the final round of the Winter League preliminary stages a lottery.

The weather was not bad enough to close the course, but the conditions were sufficiently demanding to encourage several teams to accept halved results. Following the preliminary rounds, all individual league winners go through to the knockout stages together with the three best second-placed teams. League One winners Tony Mould and Dave Copley will be joined by runners-up and last year’s winners Darren and Joe Sargood.

Jon and Jamie Herbert will represent League Two, while Sam McCall and Chris Ellis advance as winners of League Three winners from where club captain James Ablett and John Sparkes also progress as runners-up.

Both League Four winners Tim Brown and Bob Aitman and runners-up Paul Dickinson and Martin Thwaites go through with League Five winners Graham Smith and Ian Copley.