Macmillan was the clear winner after four Cornish friends took on the cancer charity’s ‘longest day’ challenge to complete four rounds of golf in a day.

Fifteen hours, 72 holes, 300 (ish) shots and 20 miles of walking around the Budock Vean’s scenic golf course ended with the hotel’s dinner guests piling out of the restaurant to clap and cheer them on their final 18th hole.

The friends, all from Constantine near Falmouth, decided to join the Macmillan challenge because they all love sport and had all experienced loved-ones being affected by cancer.

“It went really well,” says Simon Dixon. “We started at 6 in the morning and finished around 9 at night – hard work but so well worth it. Surprisingly it was more mentally tiring than physically. And it was such a nice touch when the hotel guests came out to cheer us at the end.”

Dixon, along with Robert Gardner, Cy Prynn and Jason Hall were among 3000 teams around the UK taking part in Macmillan’s ‘Longest Day Golfing Challenge’ to raise at least £1.5million for people affected by cancer.

“All of us here at the hotel really had to take our hats off to these guys,” says the Budock Vean’s owner Martin Barlow. “It’s easy enough to say ‘four rounds of golf in a day’ but incredibly hard to do – so it was a real privilege for us to be able to host this Challenge for such a good cause.”

There is still time to support the team’s Macmillan challenge, now that it is successfully completed. Anyone wishing to donate to the charity can do so through Simon Dixon’s Just Giving page at  https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Simon-Dixon23 .