The course was still recovering from the recent weather but all greens were in play and credible scores were returned given the overall conditions.

Alan Rankin’s three net birdies helped him towards his 23 stableford points to win by one shot over David Kick whose second placing in consecutive weeks will be frustrating.

Four players shared third place on 21 points with Robbie Gowling benefitting from the count-back process to earn this honour.

On Sunday, November 2 the Winter League reconvened after a rain delay a week ago. Course conditions had marginally improved from Saturday despite significant rainfall overnight obliging the greens staff to put one Winter Green into play.

Scoring was again high with the winning pair of Steven Court and Stuart Graham (a last minute substitute for Ray Smith) equalling the 45 point competition ‘high’ for the 2014 League.

In a clear second place were Graham Thornley and Michael Stephen with 44 but there was third place rivalry between Dougie Singleton and John Gallacher, Ian Bennett and Mark Fairley and Brian Walker with partner George Cairns. They all carded 43 points and it was down to a count-back over the last six holes that declared Singleton and Gallacher ahead.

For the first time in the 2014 Winter League there was a proliferation of twos which automatically engaged the rule that one of the par three holes had to be excluded to keep the number to less than 15.

This was randomly drawn as the 16th and eliminated seven couples from the ‘ball pool’ that is split between qualifiers each week.

The leading team under Tom Griffiths won the week again, increasing their total to 588 and keeping Don Griffin’s team in second overall place on 557. David Tolhurst’s team remain in third overall position on 550 but with others close on their heels and another three weeks to play, much could change. In the Eclectic competition, Peter Haggarty and Alan Scott remain two points ahead of the rest of the field on 54.

There are numerous sports clubs in the Helensburgh area, as is evident by the coverage in the Helensburgh Advertiser but there is no formal communal platform to encourage inter-action between them.

Helensburgh Golf Club is promoting the idea of a Community Sports Forum which would enable all clubs to exchange views on how they could be of assistance to each other, whether it is the exchange of information, advice, skills, equipment, facilities, access to venues or simply working together to help to promote membership alliances.

If your club is interested in progressing and participating in this idea then please contact Stuart Graham via thesecretary@helensburghgolfclub.co.uk so that an exploratory meeting can be planned.