GC Level Play Singles Competition 21 October 2023

A difficult week weatherwise for croquet: the advance forecast for Friday was horrendous and for Saturday, the competition day, not much better. Discussions on cancelling held earlier in the week as doing so at the last minute is never helpful for players and catering volunteers. Frances cancelled her short croquet course module on the Friday but the regretted it as the forecast proved completely out, with a day of sunshine instead of storms. Oh well.

As it was, Saturday also looked ominous even the day before and we did have a fair few showers until about 2pm; but then the sun came out and a pleasant afternoon followed, to the extent that quite a few players had an extra game after the competition ended.

Entry was rather lower than usual as out winter competitions are usually over-subscribed and eventually 16 players took part in two groups: a higher handicapped group playing a block of five rounds with six players; and a lower handicapped group playing a five round Swiss with ten players. I don't think Sussex County has used the Swiss format for its GC one competitions before, as it requires some time between rounds and can be more uncertain in producing a result than a block; and so it proved in this event. However, it does have the advantage for improving players that they get to play opponents who would otherwise be in a higher block.

As a winter competition no jumping was allowed so these were not handicap card or ranking games.

The block event was comprehensively won by Graham Tucker who was unbeaten in all his games. Congratulations to him. It was also a pleasure to see two newer players taking part, one at least in her first competition. I hope they both enjoyed the experience, even if they didn't win as many games as they would have liked. Do come again!

The Swiss event had 10 players in the handicap range of -1 to 4 so provided plenty of opportunities for the higher end to play better players; and so it proved. By the end of round three Bridget Goodman (2) was on 3 wins, ahead of Jane Powell (4), David Dickins (4), Konstantin Yudintsev (3) and Richard Brooks (-1), all on 2 wins. The fourth round ended with 4 players on 3 wins, and the Manager was in trouble! These resolved themselves to two players on 4 wins after the final round - Richard Brooks and David Dickins - but of course they hadn't played each other. As the sun was out and there was no time constraint, so a play-off followed which was won by Richard 7-4. Congratulations to Richard and also to David for an excellent performance on the day.

A special thank you to Steve Chapman and Ben Harwood our grounds contractor; Ben opened lawns 7-9 for us to play on rather than lawns 1-3 (which would have been unplayble with the rain, and Steve prepared them up with good hoop settings and smart new lines. Thank you very much.

Thanks also to Rachel Pointon for providing and preparing an excellent light lunch, even though not many had requested it; and puttin up with the Manager changing his mind about when lunch would be, to take advantage of a dry spell. The time our catering volunteers put in to buying, preparing and serving lunch on these occasions is very much appreciated by those who eat it.

Full results