PHYLLIS COURT CROQUET CLUB
Golf Croquet Open Singles Tournament, 8th July 2023
for the 'Blue Ball' Trophy
8 July - Chris Roberts wins Open Singles (Blue Ball) Tournament by one hoop in three-way tie
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Chris Roberts won the Open Singles tournament today by the slimmest of margins when he tied on game wins with Rick Lilley and Robin Coates, but had the superior net hoops tally, so won the coveted Blue Ball Trophy.
The trio were tied on 4 wins apiece after a highly competitive day of mixed weather that, in part, lead to a very late finish at just after 1900,
Roberts net hoop score was +6, to Lilley's +5 and Coates -1, so the winning margin was just one hoop and it doesn't get any closer than that!
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Golf Croquet Open Singles Tournament, 1st April 2023
for the 'Blue Ball' Trophy
1 April - Goldring wins exciting Open Singles Tournament
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Roger Goldring retained the Open Singles day-tournament title, and with it the Blue Ball trophy, ahead of a quality field of 8 of our top 10 players today.
it was nice to see a good number of croquet members supporting the tournament this afternoon, on what was not a warm day.
Many thanks to Frances Colman for Managing and Refereeing all day in the cold, and to Andy Jones and Russell Robinson who manfully helped Chris Roberts push the heavy Bowdry water removal machine this morning (despite not being in the playing line-up themselves).
It was a long day (starting with Bowdry at 0800) and the highly contested tournament went on until 1840 with an exciting deciding last game.
Going into the last round, Charlie von Schmieder was out in front on 5 wins, followed by Roger Goldring and Ian Norris on 4 and this trio had Chris Roberts, Helena Fensome and Robin Coates to play respectively.
If von Schmieder won his last game, he would win the tournament but if he lost and either or both Goldring and Norris won, there would be a tie on 5 game wins each, with net hoops deciding the tournament winner.
Norris lost surprisingly to Coates, who had had a bad day up to that point, so that put Norris out of the running, before Goldring beat H.Fensome to equal von Schmieder's 5 wins, and so the tournament hung on the von Schmieder v Roberts result.
Roberts stormed ahead to 5-2 due to some tidy hoop running and a lucky fortune ricochet at hoop 6.
Hoops 8 and 9 were long contests but eventually Roberts lead 6-3 and then ran hoop 10 for the win, which created the tie on 5 games win each for von Schmieder and Goldring.
Manager Frances Colman calculated the net hoop tallies which were +9 and +12 making Goldring the winner at the end of an excellent day all-round.
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Finishing order: Goldring (5 wins from 7 games), von Schmieder (5), Roberts (4), Norris (4), M.Fensome (3), Lilley (3), H.Fensome (2), Coates (2).
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