GC Golf Croquet

The Tournament is an open two-day Golf Croquet Level Play Singles competition for unrestricted handicaps, staged at Watford for the first time as part of the CA's national Open Series tournaments in the Croquet Association fixtures calendar.

Open GC Tournament
results by year:

Title: Golf Croquet Open Series Tournament
Handicaps: GC: any
Date: Saturday 2 - Sunday 3 September
Capacity: 16
Manager: Simon Hathrell
Secretary: Eddie Chung
Email: click on link to send an email
Phone: 07806 639257
Address: please ask, or log in and obtain it from the CA member's directory
Entries: Allocation: 5 June; Closing: 28 August
Those who wish to enter and pay online may do so through the CA website in same way as entering a CA Tournament. Alternatively, postal entries should be submitted together with entry fee using the standard CA Tournament entry form.
Entry fee: £24 (CA Premium members), others £36.
Pay online (see above) or by cheque to the secretary, payable to "Watford (Cassiobury) Croquet Club".
Format: AMD, provisionally the standard Series format if full capacity.

Exceptions and additions to the standard CA tournament regulations:

  1. Players must be prepared to play up to 8 games per day.
  2. This tournament forms part of the National GC Open Series.
  3. Tea, soft drinks and biscuits are provided free of charge, and a cold lunch will be available for a small fee.
  4. Details of parking and other arrangements will be sent to participants before the event.

After a couple of months of rather dismal weather it changed for the better just in time for this tournament, and greeted the players with two days of warm, dry and mostly sunny conditions. The numbers had unfortunately shrunk to 9 with a late cancellation the evening before, so the tournament format was modified to start with an all-play-all block in which every player received a bye. The top 4 in the block would then proceed to a best-of-three games knock-out to decide the winner, and the other 5 would play each other again in a 'plate' block.

There was quite a wide spread of players' Dgrades ranging between 1600 and 2300, plus a newcomer, Ian Davidson, who had never played in a ranking tournament before and had only been assessed at 8 a week before for his first handicap.

It became apparent quite soon that Tim King was starting to return to the form which had seen his Dgrade 300 points higher several years earlier, and by the end of the first day he was unbeaten in 7 games, including a convincing 7-2 win over Nick Archer. Meanwhile newcomer Ian Davidson was trying but not quite succeeding to upset the form book, his best attempt being a fairly close 5-7 defeat by the -1 handicapper Don Beck.

The second day started with the final round of the initial all-play-all block, and it saw an unexpected 7-5 win by Stephen Webb over Tim King, which relegated Tim to second place in the block behind Nick Archer. The number of players for the day also reduced even further to 8 when Don Beck had to withdraw with an aggravated ankle injury, which meant that Ignacio Gross Ariza was promoted into the fourth place in the main knock-out, and the format of the 'plate' for the remaining 4 players was changed to a best-of-three games knock-out as well.

In the knock-out semi-finals Nick had a fairly comfortable 2-0 win over Ignacio, and Tim won 2-1 in a closely-fought contest against Ian Shore. Then in the final between Nick and Tim, Nick took the first game 7-5, lost the second 6-7 and took a 3-1 lead in the decider. But then Tim switched into top gear by winning the next four hoops, including running hoop 6 from 20 yards away and then hoop 7 from the north boundary right down to hoop 8. Nick was unable to recover from his subsequent 3-5 deficit and Tim emerged the winner on 7-5.

Meanwhile in the 'plate' knock-out the favourite Ross Bagni emerged the winner beating Andrew Carpenter 2-1 in the final.

Tim was presented with a new trophy that had kindly been sponsored by Veolia (who maintain the courts), on a plinth turned by a local craftsman from wood from an Alder tree recently harvested in Cassiobury park.

Report by Simon Hathrell

Results:

Results vs.: NA TK IS DB IGA AC RB SW ID WINS NET
HOOPS
Nick Archer   2-7 7-6 7-3 7-5 7-1 7-4 7-2 7-1 7 +22
Tim King 7-2   7-5 7-6 7-6 7-2 7-3 5-7 7-2 7 +21
Ian Shore 6-7 5-7   7-2 7-4 7-4 7-3 7-1 7-3 6 +22
Don Beck 3-7 6-7 2-7   7-6 7-5 6-7 7-5 7-5 4 -4
Ignacio Gross Ariza 5-7 6-7 4-7 6-7   4-7 7-6 7-2 7-3 3 0
Andrew Carpenter 1-7 2-7 4-7 5-7 7-4   7-2 6-7 7-1 3 -3
Ross Bagni 4-7 3-7 3-7 7-6 6-7 2-7   7-4 7-4 3 -10
Stephen Webb 2-7 7-5 1-7 5-7 2-7 7-6 4-7   7-2 3 -13
Ian Davidson 1-7 2-7 3-7 5-7 3-7 1-7 4-7 2-7   0 -35

Knock-out

SEMI-FINALS FINAL WINNER
Nick Archer Nick Archer
(7-3, 7-4)
Tim King
(5-7, 7-6, 7-5)
Ignacio Gross Ariza
Ian Shore Tim King
(7-3, 6-7, 7-5)
Tim King
  THIRD PLACE
PLAY-OFF:
Ian Shore
(7-4, 7-5)

Winner Tim King with Veolia
representative Romy Santer
Participants
Name Club H'cap
Nick Archer Watford -2
Ian Shore High Wycombe -1
Don Beck Surbiton -1
Ross Bagni Leighton Linslade 0
Tim King Ashby 0
Ignacio Gross Ariza Surbiton 2
Andrew Carpenter Durham 2
Stephen Webb Watford 5
Ian Davidson Barnet 8

Plate

SEMI-FINALS FINAL WINNER
Andrew Carpenter Andrew Carpenter
(7-0, 7-4)
Ross Bagni
(7-6, 4-7, 7-5)
Stephen Webb
Ross Bagni Ross Bagni
(7-2, 5-7, 7-2)
Ian Davidson
  THIRD PLACE
PLAY-OFF:
Stephen Webb
(7-4, 7-6)

Don Beck had to withdraw after the first day because of an injury.