SHEILA Dornan, the ladies’ captain, held her winter competition at Colchester Golf Club with all proceeds from the day going to her charity of the year which is the Cystic Fibrosis Holiday Fund.

The competition started with a forecast of heavy rain after 1pm hanging over the competitors so the morning starters were likely to have an advantage. Sure enough almost exactly on 1pm the rains came.

With a turn out of 15 teams of four it was Fiona Prentice, Alison Cordran, Penny Fairs and Marilyn Free who survived the weather and returned with a total of 65 points to take first place.

Sixty-two points was the next best which was the team of Penny Wellsted, Barbara Lane, Elizabeth Harrison and Janet Austin.

The men’s Winter Leagues lived up to their name last weekend with cold and heavy rains on the Saturday followed by Sunday’s first frost of the year.

As last year, there are eight leagues of eight pairs, with the top two pairs in each league going through to the knockout stages played out in February and March.

At this early stage it is never safe to predict which pairs will go through but from the results so far Tim Moriarty and Lewis Chambers in League One are unbeaten after four wins but the position below them is hotting up with the twins Ben and Joe Williams sharing three wins as is their father Colin, who is paired up with Stewart Ness. They have yet to play each other.

In league two, Kevin Brett and Howard Foster are also unbeaten after four of their seven matches.

Two pairs in league three remain unbeaten after three matches, they are Mark Westall and Ian Wigston along with Steve Sharman and Gary Driver.

In leagues four, six and seven no pattern has been established with any of the pairings and places for the knockouts are wide open.

Knockout places are also wide open in league five but Miles Hooton and Jon Gilbert have played five matches without defeat, however, they have halved two of them.

Finally, in league eight, Mike Withers and John Dornan are setting the mark with four wins but Bill Eke and Stuart Reed are hot on their heels with three out of three.