Club Champions Tournament
by year:
Golf CroquetManager: Ken Wheeler
This is the fourth year that this event has been staged, and it continues to attract a good level of entrants from the region's clubs. Again this year there were 20 entries from 11 clubs. Playing on Colchester's well maintained lawns on Sunday 29th June, both the Level Play and Handicap events were split into two blocks of 5, leading to a final round between the two block winners. Fortunately the weather remained overcast but dry following the downpours of the previous day.
In the Level Play event with just one game to go in the A block, David Crawford of the midSUFFOLK Club met Duncan Hector from the Bygrave Club, both on 3 wins apiece, to decide the block. In a very close and exciting match the spoils went to David by 7/6. Meanwhile in the B block Dick Strover of Colchester just managed to see off Jeff Race of Hunstanton 7/4 to meet David in the final round. Despite a dogged display David just proved on the day to be in better form than Dick, running out the winner by displaying a very difficult jump shot at hoop 10 to clinch the match 7/3 to lift the trophy.
In the Handicap block A, Jason Carley of Watford and Barrie James of midSUFFOLK both stood on 3 wins apiece when they met in their final game of the block, in which Barrie ran out the winner seeing off Jason 7/3. In block B, Zandra Cardy of Colchester stood undefeated when she met Mike May from Bury St. Edmunds who had up to then suffered only one previous defeat. In a very close game Zandra ran out the winner 7/5 to meet Barrie in the final play-off. Despite having a 6 bisque advantage this proved to be a close game as Zandra managed to keep pace with Barrie gradually extracting these bisques. This game was so close that by the time play reached the 13th hoop and with all the bisques utilised it looked as if Zandra was in pole position when an unexpected clearance was missed, leaving an easy hoop for Barrie to run to take the group.
The day was expertly managed by Ken Wheeler who devised the format which contributed to making the day an outstanding success.
Report by Terrey Sparks,See also:
