Over the next 10 days we are hosting no less than four quite varied Golf Croquet events:
- Sat 9th – Sun 10th: Nottingham GC Championship
- Wed 13th: GC B-level tournament
- Thurs 14th: GC C-level tournament
- Sat 16th – Sun 17th: GC Home Internationals
Between them these give wonderful opportunities to watch GC play at all levels, and give some of our members something to aspire to. The weekend events will attract some of the UK's top players and will be particularly impressive. The Home Internationals will involve teams of four representing England, Scotland and Wales, and will include members of our club in all three teams. (Ireland sadly will not be represented this time).
Now we have 9 lawns we can run these events and sill have capacity for members to play each other.
James Death had an outright win to retain the trophy for the Championship of the East Midlands.
Nottingham attracted a very strong field for this three day Championship event, with five of the 29 entrants being handicap -2 or better, and over half being -1 or better. It is managed according to the Draw and Process protocol in which everyone is entered into 2 knockouts, and the winners of the knockouts play each other in a playoff.
To the delight of top players, the lawns had been cut short and irriigation switched off for some days, which – combined with scorching hot weather and wind – made for fast and challenging conditions. Lawn one was timed at 12 "Plummers" on the third day. The stronger players coped with difficult conditions well, with 24 triple peels accomplished.
Ian Vincent managed the tournament as efficiently as ever, and – perhaps courageously – decided not to impose time limits. The reward for the late evenings was that there were 19 games with a margin of +3 or less: 4 won by a margin of +1, 9 of +2, and 6 of +3, almost all of which would have been truncated otherwise.
Nottingham member James Death (ranked 7 in the world) was undefeated to win both the Draw and Process, meaning there was no playoff and it was over well before tea time. He beat Alain Giraud in the final of the Draw and Nigel Polhill in that of the Process. Debbie Lines and Neal Bacon entertained the post tea crowd on Sunday afternoon by contesting the final of the plate, with Debbie emerging victorious after a fine display of shooting by both players.
