2023 Open One-Day AC Tournament

The June heat-wave provided hot, dry and mostly sunny conditions for the day's play. All the players arrived early except for Jon Palin, who marked his return to ranking AC games after an absence of 10 years by arriving hot and a little breathless at exactly 9:30, having just finished the 5km Saturday morning Park Run in Cassiobury Park.

In order to avoid play running into the early evening the initial plan was for all games to be played with a 2½ hour time-limit, with the B block playing 18-point games in order to increase the chances of games finishing within time. However, in the event play proceeded at a healthy pace in all games, and all the round 1 games in both blocks were completed in under 2 hours, so it was agreed by the players that the remaining games in B block could all be played as 26-point games instead.

In the A block it only took a few minutes of the first game for Jon Palin to shake off the cobwebs of his 10-year absence, after which he showed a confident flowing style with a level of consistent accuracy that would be the envy of many players with a minus handicap. Long and angled hoops were run without any hint of difficulty, long-range rushes went in the intended direction, medium-length roquets were almost invariably struck centre-ball, and long roquets were hit more often than his opponents would normally expect. It was therefore no surprise to see him seal the tournament title with a convincing +24 win against Gary Bennett in the last round.

In the B block birthday boy David Robinson played consistently well in his first two games, and he was the only player to start the third round with two wins under his belt. But after five consecutive days of sport (one day of cricket, one of golf and the three of croquet - at least his priorities appeared to be right!) he then ran out of steam in the last round and lost to Stephen Mills, so that Stephen ended up matching David on wins and finished as the block winner on the 'who-beat-whom' tie-breaker.