Will Gee won the 9th Surbiton Golf Croquet Championship

[<<] [>>] by Nelson Morrow
18th April 2011 (GC - Championships)

The Tournament was played under blue skies and highly competitively, with five of the players gearing up for the World Championship in July. It was also good to see so many new faces, some playing at Surbiton for the first time.

After the block stage (each competitor playing 10 games), the top two advanced to the quarterfinal stage. Three of the block winners, Simon Carter, Nick Cheyne and Richard Thompson failed to proceed to the semis. In the first semi, an in form Andrew Hobbs (SA) beat Pierre Beaudry (7-2 7-4) and in the other semi an unbeaten Will Gee took on Howard Cheyne, who had only qualified out of the blocks on count back.
This was a closely fought battle with Will finally proceeding to the final 7-6, 6-7, 7-5.

The final looked as if it was going to be a one-sided affair with Will winning the first 7-3 and going 3-0 up in the second. Will missed an easy hoop and this seemed to give Andrew hope and confidence and he won 7 of the next 8 hoops.
Andrew's confidence continued into the third taking a 5-3 lead, but with Andrew sitting in front of 9 Will decided against clearing and ran 9 from the boundary right up to the next hoop. This was the turning point and Will took the next 3 hoops to win his first Surbiton GC Tournament.

The other players played out for their final position:

1. Will Gee
2. Andrew Hobbs
3. Howard Cheyne
4. Pierre Beaudry
5. Malcolm Bigg
6. Simon Carter
7. Richard Thompson
8. Nick Cheyne
9. Nelson Morrow
10. John Spiers
11. Don Beck
12. Bill Arliss
13. Terje Jonnason
14. Tony Forbes
15. Richard Brooks
16. Robby Dodds
17. Sue Lightbody
18. Robert Ellis
19. Tom Weston
20. Sam Murray
21. Christina Rice
22. Les Bowker
23. Alwen Bowker
24. Chris Parish