THE ninth annual Foley Challenge, between the Sand Hogs Ancient Golf Society and the Foley Arms Golf Society was held last weekend at Cleobury Mortimer and Bransford golf clubs.

This year's Sand Hogs captain, Steve Vizard, was determined to maintain the winning way of 2006 and started his preparation nine months ago with a selection policy similar to that of the Ryder Cup team.

Society members had to earn the right to represent the Sand Hogs by performances in the regular society days. This meant that some of the old faithful were unable to get into the team, however the youthful replacements performed exceptionally well and the Sand Hogs came out the eventual winners 31-25, making the records show four wins each and one draw.

On Friday, at Cleobury Mortimer, there were eight greensomes and eight fourball matches which the Foley managed to win with their team of experienced players - this was the first time that the Foley had ever been in the lead after the first day and at 13-11.

Despite some memorable performances such as Phil Davies and John Holliday earning a draw after being four down at the turn and Dean Potts and Patrick Stone just losing on the 18th, the writing looked on the wall for the Sand Hogs, who had never won the singles outright in the previous eight outings.

Even though the Sand Hogs were behind, the scores for all the pairs were very close with the exception of Andy Pugh and Mark Smith who defeated Duncan McKerracher and Mark Berry 7-6.

The singles, at Bransford GC, was a tight affair at the top of the draw, but as the day wore on the enthusiasm and team spirit of the Sand Hogs put too much pressure on the low handicaps of the Foley and one by one they were worn down until at the end of the day the Sand Hogs triumphed 10-6.

Dave Pugh winning by a comfortable 9/8, Terry Martin by 7/5 and Phil Davies and new boy Mark McCarthy both completing 6/5 victories.

On the Sand Hogs team there were three victories for Andy Pugh, Terry Martin, Dave Pugh and Noel Hoare. The Foley had Nick Woof to thank for their only 100 per cent performance; however a special mention must be made to the Foley patron, Nigel Thomas, who won two and drew his other match - this having only ever won a pairs match in the past eight years.

At the celebration dinner at the Foley Arms Hotel, thanks were given to the Foley captain, Andy Harris for putting up a good display and perhaps he regretted giving white feathers to the Sand Hogs before the match started.

Steve Vizard also thanked all the players, the Red Lion and Foley Arms for the excellent hospitality given to the players over the competition before passing over the Foley Challenge responsibility to Steve Rhodes and Pete Morris.

Both are looking forward to a tougher affair in 2008 with the Foley needing to regain some pride after the last few years.

The next event is the Captain's Day on June 23. Full details are available on the website www.sandhogs.co.uk.