Canterbury

A last-hole birdie clinched victory for Jez Iddenden and Mike Bidwell in the Vice-presidents’ Trophy foursomes competition at Canterbury on Sunday.

One-handicap Iddenden and sixhandicap Bidwell, in receipt of just 3.5 shots, had little room for error and this was borne out when their net score of 70.5 saw them home by just half-a-stroke.

In blustery winds that added to the difficulty of a course already playing long, the two men combined well after starting a little indifferently with bogeys at the third and fourth.

Bidwell pulled a stroke back by chipping in from the back of the green at the sixth but at the ninth, Iddenden produced his one loose shot of the round, a blocked drive that resulted in a lost ball and a double-bogey.

After turning in three-over- par 39, the two men started the inward nine with a bogey at 10 but this was followed by four consecutive pars before Iddenden rolled in a tremendous 30-foot putt across the slope at the 15th for birdie.

Although the pair made bogey at 17, they promptly picked up the dropped shot when Iddenden sunk another birdie putt at the 18th for a level-par inward half of 35 and a gross 74 for the round.

Bidwell said: “We combined well and when we did miss greens, we generally got up and down. And we putted solidly all the way round.”

The biggest challenge for the top prize came from five-handicap Tim O’reilly and 15-handicap left-hander Kevin Elliott, who came up half-a-stroke short of the winning pair.

Things didn’t start out to well for O’reilly and Elliott when they doublebogeyed the par-three second but they got a shot back with a birdie at the next and bogeys at the seventh and ninth took them to the turn in 39 gross, the same as the eventual winners.

Three dropped shots in the next six holes were hardly destructive to their card but then the pair nose-dived, with double-bogeys at the 16th and 17th, which proved critical.

A further half-point back in third place were five-handicap David Elliott and Tony Wenham, who plays off 10.

Again it was holes 16 and 17 that helped determine the final outcome after the two men, receiving 7.5 strokes, had put themselves into a promising position.

Birdies at the first and ninth holes contributed to an outward half of fourover gross 40 but three dropped shots in two holes, with a double at 16 and a single at 17, put paid to their ambitions.