17th May
With a handful of games still to play, the champion is already decided, but the road to this result was pocked with significant potholes.
First was Mothers’ Day, inconveniently scheduled for the Sunday of the chosen weekend. “Let’s start on Friday. That shouldn’t be a problem. Friday is after all, a scheduled club day.”
Friday morning, well before dawn, kicked off with a significant thunderstorm, flashing away in the direction of Dunsborough. By 7:00 or so it had hit Busselton. Streets and driveways flooded. So did our courts. Lightning continued and kept us from setting the hoops. Players arrived with full waterproofs and even spare clothes. Normality asserted itself when Janie came with a large cake for morning tea.
The courts drained beautifully, the lightning stopped and play commenced only a minute or two after the scheduled 8:30 start. Not exactly a teacup storm but an impressive drop of water. Early favourites asserted early dominance. Ron and Geoff had comfortable wins over Trevor, although Robyn had to work harder than she might have expected in her opening game against Henry, her partner for the preceding two doubles championships. Henry was clinging to his mantra “What would Robyn do?” and ran her to a 7 – 6 result. It must have slipped his mind in some later games, although he scored an upset win against Barry.
Max had been a late entrant after he suddenly became available. It was good to see him smashing us about the courts in his cheerful style and causing some upsets of his own, especially defeating Ron 7 – 6 with a 13th hoop jump shot.
Robyn, too inflicted similar pain on Ron, a man whose jumps hots are skills appreciated beyond the boundaries of our courts. (Players have been known to stop and watch when Ron takes off his hat.)
Friday, then, became a day of unremarkable weather. It was cloudy and humid, but the forecast wind did not intrude until well after lunchtime. Westerly squalls suddenly hit with stinging rain. Trevor and Barry were out on Court 3 engaged in a seesaw struggle for hoop 3 when wind gusts made balance for taking a shot difficult (not to mention the leaves scudding past).
No other game was in progress. After a long pause trying to get stable, Trevor launched an uncontrolled shot and looked at Barry, who grinned. Time to call it off! They agreed to resume play on Saturday and started to pull hoops.
Resuming play on Saturday, was not as they’d imagined. The rules intervened. Another pothole. Ask Trevor Barry how they resumed their game, or ask Robyn or Geoff for an authoritative version.
Saturday’s games produced their share of tense finishes. Vicki, who couldn’t play Friday because of work commitments, had a very busy day. Robyn continued her serene progress, and John D struck a patch of great form.
The day’s play finished without further potholes, although Allan was not fit enough to play. There was still time to accommodate all remaining fixtures before the end of the next weekend.
There was still time, that is, until we learned that one of us may have been exposed to Covid.
Saturday’s games produced their share of tense finishes. Vicki, who couldn’t play Friday because of work commitments, had a very busy day. Robyn continued her serene progress, and John D struck a patch of great form.
The day’s play finished without further potholes, although Allan was not fit enough to play. There was still time to accommodate all remaining fixtures before the end of the next weekend.
There was still time, that is, until we learned that one of us may have been exposed to Covid.
The club committee responded quickly: players advised to test and follow familiar club protocols resanitising and masks. Then we learned that another (who cannot be named) had actually tested positive
Another pothole! Especially for the infected individual (think of ‘them’ in the non-binary plural*).
‘They’ had been given the Covid all-clear on Thursday 23rd and completed their game against Steve. Then they faced John on the following day. They lost them both. The game against Steve went down to hoop 12 where Steve finally prevailed. It was Steve’s first victory in the championship.
Saturday 25th: the last chance to impact final rankings.
This was a bit of an anticlimax. John completed a very successful tournament, beating Allan 7 – 4. He also counted Max as his victim. Both Max and they (who cannot be named) were unable to front for their games because Covid had dragged the tournament to the point that neither was available on this last day. This meant John had to be content with a 1 – 0 result against Max and Allan a 1 – 0 result against ‘them’.
So, who won?
At the end of the first two days of competition, the winner was clear: Robyn Dart, State Ladies Champion and State Doubles Champion (with Gary Phipps) was undefeated. The only question was, “Who will come second and third?”
That was decided on the final Saturday. Ron Vincent and John Dunn tied with eight wins each and two losses. John’s 1 – 0 forfeiture result damaged his net hoop tally, so Ron finished ahead. A quirk of Ron’s two losses was that he, our best jump shot exponent, lost both games to a jump shot – one to Max and the other to Robyn.
* The gender-diverse community has adopted the plural pronoun to proclaim their independence from gender categories. Certain official surveys allow respondents to identify this way. Fascinating. Google it if you’ve not encountered the convention.
2024 Singles Championship Final Standings
Observations on Play
One of the attractive things about Golf Croquet is the lack of an agreed technique for holding a mallet or striking a ball. It leads to enormous variation, especially in jump shots. There are, however, observable national coaching styles. They can be seen on YouTube in the much-improved filming of national and international competitions.
Steve Lumsdaine demonstrates the New Zealand technique, where ‘casting’ transitions to shooting without any pause. Megan Reynolds is another who does this. Vicki Duffell demonstrates the fairly widespread (sorry) technique of keeping one’s legs very close together to minimise the chance of a wayward backswing. Jan Maugham eliminates the problem by having almost no backswing and a big follow through.
Egypt’s internationals, like New Zealand’s, are almost clones. They play with their feet very close together, use the “Irish Grip” and bend very low over the ball, sliding their hands down the shaft of the mallet, interlocking their hands (c.f. golfers) and go into some sort of Zen state before belting the ball. Max Kewish is our closest exponent of the technique. Barry Colton is another, although Barry’s feet are well-spaced and you could hardly accuse Barry of Zen – too much laughter.
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