DC XVI summary

The final day was at the Faldo course, Amendoeira - a huge 2 course, Abama-esque development over a vast track of land designed for upmarket villas, but which has apparently been a bit of a white elephant so far.

We posed for the usual team photo on the first tee:

There were some interesting holes, although I felt it was a bit tricked-up in parts - and it certainly wasn't a course where it was likely that either Les or I could score sufficient points - 28 and 30 minimum respectively - to mount a final day challenge to Malcolm - and so it proved. My pre-match sweep prediction of a winning score of 27 points was spot on - and it was Malcolm who got it, so I presented him with his prize ball as today's winner:

Malcolm improved his top 3 score by just one point - as did I, allowing me to pip Les to 2nd place - on countback, of course. Malcolm's winning margin was a healthy 8 points and Les then presented him with the Desert Classic trophy:

Although it was Malcolm's 6th win, it was his first since Marrakech in 2010, and his average winning score of 28.0 was the lowest ever recorded - in fact, the first time it has been under 30. There were only two 30+ pointers this week, reflecting, we hope, the difficulty of the courses, although the fact that Dick, Malcolm and I had hardly swung a club since last season didn't help. What Les' excuse was we will wait to hear.

The location was great, however, and Les was a terrific host - and chauffeur. Our experience of the Algarve was certainly much better than our last visit there in 2003, but there's no doubt the exceptional weather definitely helped.