THE first two weeks of April saw the beginning of the annual county competitions across Essex and Maldon Golf Club teams have so far competed in three of them.

The Leslie Wood knockout, for players of handicap 7.5 and above, saw Maldon host a team from Gosfield Lake.

The morning foursomes went the way of the visitors 3½-1½.

However, Maldon rallied in the ten afternoon singles matches to draw level at 7½ matches each.

This meant a sudden-death play-off was required to decide the winner.

Maldon’s selected play-off player Alan Buckingham fought bravely but was ultimately beaten on the first extra hole.

Earlier in the week, the Maldon seniors team contested their first round County Knockout match against Woodfood. There were some excellent performances, including Dave Newton’s superb 7 & 6 victory.

Dave Allen also grabbed the headlines with a hole-in-one during his match.

The final score was a 7-4 victory for Maldon and they go on to face Forrester Park in round two.

The Norman Plum competition got underway on Saturday, in which six betterball, match-play pairs competed against opponents from Thorndon Park.

Three matches were played at each venue and Maldon won the home leg by two matches to one but lost the away leg by the same score and so it went to a countback to determine the winning team.

After much deliberation it was determined that Thorndon Park had triumphed by the narrowest of countback margins.

The monthly medal was won by Steve Paddon with a nett 70, Wenlock was second on nett 71 and Pat Coyne was third with 73.