AUSTRALIAN OPEN: Robert Fletcher claimed his fourth straight Australian Open singles title with a 3-0 win over Kevin Beard (26tp-0, 26tpo-14, 26tpo-13) at the Victorian Croquet Centre, Cairnlea, Victoria. The event was held November 18-23 and Fletcher went 14-0 and is the world number one AC player with a 2787 dynamic grade and a 71-9 record for 2014. Full bracket.
HANEKOM INTERVIEW: CWO has an extended interview with new Women's GC World Champion Judith Hanekom. Excerpt:
Visit the storeNovember is well under way and the U.S. now has a new national champion for the deadness game while in Australia the young Fletcher crew has become quite a force. I have to say though, I'm most happy this morning because our newest family member let me sleep in until 4:30 a.m. Hooray for sleep! Here's your weekly dose--
HUNEYCUTT IS U.S. CHAMP: Danny Huneycutt won his first U.S. Rules title with a +24, -24, 20-10 win over Jeff Soo. Britt Ruby and Rory Kelly took the doubles title with a win over Brian Cumming and Ben Rothman 19-10. In first flight action, Steve Mossbrook took the title with a 17-5 win over Mary Rodeberg.
In case you missed it, Jenny Clark took the Australian Open singles title. The ACA site has full results for both singles and doubles.
The USCA website has a full photo gallery and summary of the recent USCA GC Nationals Tournament. In addition, singles champion Ben Rothman has a rundown of the event posted on his CroquetPro blog.
Also from Ben's blog, he has an updated post on "an easy way to a good swing."
Big news from the WCF as new secretary general Martin French has started a What's Happening with the WCF Blog. This a great move as I've already dropped that RSS feed into the automated news feed in the right column of the Croquet Network front page, so you'll see any new posts from the WCF as they come up. That feed collects all of the very few available croquet dedicated RSS feed. More croquet sites need RSS feeds and a simple concept is to use an external free service for a blog and automatically feed that blogs headlines into the front page of your main site. Definitely a traffic driver and a way to keep users engaged. Also, it simplifies your updating process.
Recent winners from he 25th New Zealand Veterans’ Northern Championship held at the Whangarei Croquet Club in Whangareri:
Association Championship Singles
Winner - Roger White
Runner up - Richard Williamson
Association Handicap Singles (2 rounds)
Winner - Roger White
Runner up - Richard Williamson
Association Doubles
Winners - George Depree & Helen Wilkinson
Runners up - Verna Williscroft & Margaret Lindsay
Golf Croquet Handicap Doubles
Winners_ Judy Keogh & Jon Thackray
Runners up - on a c/b - John & Carol Christmas
Golf Croquet Handicap Singles
Winner - John Christmas
Runner up - Carol Christmas
Kicking off this Wednesday morning and there is a lot of croquet going on as the U.S. has wrapped up some recent GC action and now the southern hemisphere is rolling into play. To update the Croquet Network scene, there are great materials lined out for what should have been the October/November issue of Croquet Network magazine. Job changes for me have really eaten into my person time and the issue though nearly finished has slowed to a crawl. The Croquet Network mission is not in jeopardy, but it's clear that once I am able to get this issue out, that I'll have to remove myself from the editorial function. I can still punch out the short columns and web-based materials, but the more in-depth pieces are going to be outsourced. In short, thank you for your patience and just know that this thing is still moving forward and the plan is to take it up another notch in 2011. On to the regular news ...
Through Mike Orgill and Genie Hendry, we are able to present a gallery of photos (click any of the thumbnails to move into slideshow mode) from Sarah Adler taken at the dedication of the Meadowood Croquet Lawns in honor of Jerry Stark that occurred on October 27.
In case you missed it, Ben Rothman capped a productive fall season by snagging the USCA Golf Croquet National Championship last weekend at Mission Hills in Rancho Mirage, California. Forty players partcipated in the event and Rothman had to contend with a championship flight that held top GC players Mohammad Kamal and Sheriff Abdelwahab along with hardcore U.S./association players such as Danny Huneycutt and Rich Lamm. Speaking of Huneycutt, Rothman just missed on picking up what would be the triple crown of USCA croquet singles play due to Huneycutt. Rothman has the U.S. Rules and GC Championships for 2010 but Huneycutt won the U.S. Association title back in April. Can we promote this idea of USCA Triple Crown? Looks like the list of GC champions should be added to the USCA Champions page.
You may have also missed a review of the MacRob Competition posted by Jim Bast in the main CWO forum. The post is a bit unique in that it compares the first U.S. appearance in the Mac versus the most recent. A brief excerpt:
The feeling that accompanied getting the USA accepted, and being selected for the first team, was an odd combination of relief and euphoria. We knew that we were living history and it was amazing to be a part of it. But once the Mac was underway it became a true "deer-in-the-headlights" situation.
Moving on to the southern hemisphere and there's been a lot of action in New Zealand. Results from the Gold and Silver Mallet tournament are available with Paul Skinley taking the Gold and Toby Garrison taking the Silver. The GC Gold and Silver Star tournament took place this past weekend at the Richmond Croquet Club. Phillip Drew took the Gold Star and Eleanor Hannay took the Silver. Under way this week is the NZ Scratch to 3 Bisques tournament in Pukehohe. In doubles, Hamish Mcintosh and Sean Foster are early winners.
Meanwhile Australia is getting ready to set the wickets for the 61st Australian Open which will be held November 19-20 in Melbourne. There is a full PDF program available with details on the event and a list of participating players follows:
Robert Fletcher (Vic)
Bruce Fleming (Qld)
Ken Bald (Vic)
Stephen Richards (NSW)
Trevor Bassett (NSW)
Kevin Beard (Vic)
Jim Nicholls (NSW)
Dennis Bulloch (NZ)
Tim Murphy (NSW)
Liz Fleming (Qld)
Alan Walsh (NSW)
Albert Rutten (SA)
Greg Rowberry (SA)
Alan Honey (NSW)
Rosemary Graham (NSW)
Robyn Stock (NSW)
Charlotte Morgan (SA)
Steve Jones (Qld)
Martyn Prins (NSW)
Judy Wembridge (Vic)
Mike Hughes (NSW)
Basil Ladyman (WA)
Ray Vize (NSW)
Stephen Howes (NSW)
Rosemary Newsham (Qld)
Ray Irlam (Vic)
Greg Fletcher (Vic)
Peter Landrebe (NSW)
Jenny Clarke (NZ)
Malcolm Fletcher (Vic)
Ken Edwards (NSW)
John Levick (NSW)
Alison Sharpe (NSW)
Claire Bassett (NSW)
Tom Knight (Qld)
David Wise (SA)
Tricia Devlin (Vic)
Tony Hall (NSW)
Geoff Kingdon (Tas)
Dick Smith (Qld)
Gareth Bushill (NSW)
Judy Evans (Vic)
2009 Australian Open Highlight -- Last few turns of a rather exciting finish to a semi-final game between Stephen Mulliner (Black & Blue) and Bruce Fleming (Red). Stephen is for 4-back and peg, vs Bruce for 1-back alone. Hoop 6/penult makes its presence felt here on lawn 1, as it also did on the other two lawns during the last few days of the event