Congratulations to Rachel Rowe, who won the 4th WCF Women’s Golf Croquet World Championship, which was played at Bay of Plenty in New Zealand at the end of November, 2011.
Rachel is a Maths graduate from Warwick University and works as a Data Analyst for Experian in Nottingham. She started playing croquet at Ashby in 2005, as part of her Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award. In 2007 Rachel started playing for the England U21s and won the Steel Bowl for the most improved female player. She entered the first World U21 Golf Croquet Championship in Cairo, being the second ranked female player overall. This year she entered her first Invitational event in Palm Beach, convincingly won the English Women’s Open in May and the English National GC doubles.
The event had 56 players, divided into 8 blocks of 7. Rachel won her block without dropping a game and was seeded 5th in the knock-out. The four semi-finalists were from Australia, England, Egypt and New-Zealand. She beat Jenny Clarke from New-Zealand 7-3, 6-7, 5-7, 7-6, 7-4 in the closely fought final, scoring the final hoop with a jump shot after 5 1/2 hours. Both finalists had shown great stamina and determination, combined with no little skill.
There is a fuller report of the final on the Croquet Association web site at:
https://www.croquet.org.uk/?p=/news/newsdb.asp&NewsID=4040
and full details of the event are at:
http://www.sportsground.co.nz/clubsite.asp?siteid=17424&pageid=63181&pagetypeid=1