Colchester Golf Club ladies did not enjoy the best of weather for their monthly stableford competition.

The bright early conditions soon deteriorated and wind and rain kept only the hardiest of the 47 competitors on the course.

Maureen Crosbie, continuing her recent run of form, returned the best score of the day with her card of 31 points in this 17 hole competition.

This score also took the Silver Division prize from Parma Ellis who was the next best with 28 points.

The Bronze A Division produced a close result with Maureen Devenish beating Daphne Bloomfield after a countback, both returning 27 points and Bronze B was won by Caroline Batchelor who returned 23 points.

Meanwhile, the men’s section is approaching the halfway stage of what is proving to be a challenging winter for golf and indeed for the Winter Leagues.

This year there are 65 pairs entered into nine leagues, four played on Saturdays and the balance on Sundays.

With the leagues now more than halfway through there are no out and out star pairings.

A few of the pairs are unbeaten but all have matches to play and it looks like this year’s competition is going to be tighter than ever to qualify from the leagues into the knockout stages.

With two pairs to qualify from each league the Saturday Leagues show how tight this could be.

League one is a good example, Mike Morley and Stephen Bozier have completed all their matches and have four wins against two losses but in the same league there are two pairs, Alan Irvine and Guy Lennox, and Adrian Livesley with Tim Moriarty both with four and one records with one match each to play.

In league two, Barry Hailey and Vic Pomphrett, the present holders of the trophy are unbeaten, but they have only played three matches to date.

It is the same story in league three where Russell Jervis and Paul Ager show a similar clean sheet with three straight wins, so with three more to play anything could happen.

The front runners in league four are Norman Ryan and Glen Sibbons who have four wins with one loss and one to play.

The Sunday leagues are no different and at this stage all of them look very close.

In leagues five and six there is one pair in each unbeaten.

In league five it’s Bryan Bennett and David Speed and in six it’s John Dornan and Steve Wynne, both have played four and won four.

Bill Tweddle and Ian Parry in League seven have the most wins with five but they have lost two and still have one to play but the strong pairing of Colin Glassey and Peter Brady have played four and, not as yet, lost.

League eight is much more open with no clear front runners, Andrew Archer and Robert Wilson have the best record so far with two wins, two halves and a loss.

In the final league another strong pairing of Tony Rand and Alan Sharrocks winners in the 2006/7 season are showing some form with four wins and a loss.

As in any league situation it is still early days, and a late burst of form by any of the pairings will bring unexpected results, possibly upsetting the front runners and bringing into play pairings which at the moment may look out of it.