Result - Peter Miller 5 Club Trophy. Wed 6th May.

Yesterday’s midweek 5 Club Challenge over the Queen’s Course once again served up that unique blend of ingenuity, improvisation and mild golfing panic that only a five-club competition can provide.

With players limited to a carefully selected half-bag of weapons, this was never going to be a day for over-complication. Some embraced the simplicity. Others discovered, perhaps a little too late, that leaving out a favourite club can feel like losing a close friend.

At the top of it all was Ken Marshall, whose superb nett 65 proved comfortably the best score of the day. On a course that rarely gives much away, and in a format that demands both discipline and imagination, Ken’s was a round of real class. While others were still trying to work out whether they had brought the right tools for the job, Marshall was busy getting on with it. A terrific effort and a very deserving winner.

In second place came Paul Kelly with a fine nett 67, another excellent return in a format that always seems to expose the smallest weakness. Kelly has plenty of pedigree in this event and once again showed he knows exactly how to plot his way round when club selection is rationed.

Third spot went to the defending champion, Captain Daley Smith, with nett 68. Another strong showing from the skipper, who clearly remains very much at home in this format. And it capped off a particularly satisfying spell for Daley, who, alongside Allister Wallace, had recently seen off The Cantlays in the foursomes on the King’s Course — no small feat, even with the aid of 19 shots. As confidence-builders go, that one will have done very nicely indeed.

Allister Wallace himself continued his excellent recent form with a nett 69 to take fourth place. Wallace is becoming one of those names that keeps appearing near the top of the leaderboard with suspicious regularity. Whether it’s medals, stablefords or now five-club golf, he is proving a difficult man to keep quiet.

Then came the crowded group at nett 70, featuring Tariq Ali, Jonathan Fletcher, Doug Law, Mark Higham and Richard Hally. Any one of them could justifiably wonder where the odd dropped shot crept in. In a competition like this, one poor decision can undo half a dozen clever ones, and the margins were clearly fine.

Further down the standings, Ross MacNish and Jonathan Dickson both returned 73, with Frank Johnson on 74 and Paul Lewis on 75. Respectable efforts all, especially in a format where there is absolutely nowhere to hide and no extra wedge available to bail out a lapse in judgment.

At the tougher end of the scoring, Robert McLeary posted 76, while Bill Sexton finished on 77. Eric Lambert, Douglas Laing and Gordon Stewart all signed for 78, suggesting the five clubs they selected may not quite have been the same five clubs they wished they’d selected by the time they reached the back nine.

A few players failed to complete the challenge, with Stuart Wallace, Neil Lock and Rob Simpson all marked DNF — proof, if ever it were needed, that the 5 Club Challenge remains one of the more deceptively awkward dates on the calendar.

All in all, it was another excellent edition of one of the club’s most entertaining midweek fixtures. Congratulations once again to Ken Marshall on a splendid victory — a man who needed only five clubs to show the rest of the field exactly how the job should be done.