Ryan Cabble won the Ryde Open Golf Croquet Tournament

[<<] [>>] by R Harris at Ryde Croquet Club
31 Jul 2011 (GC)

Ryan Cabble won the Centenary Cup for the second time.

The annual Open Golf Croquet Competition was held at the Ryde Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club over the weekend of 30th & 31st July. Competitors from all over the Country formed the majority of entry of 16 players, with some of these fresh from the World Championships held the previous week. Seven local players also took part in 2 days of intense competition.

The first day and a half were made up of block matches, with the entrants divided into 2 groups. This meant that there were 7 matches for every competitor, consisting of two 13 hoop games, being the usually accepted format for an Ascot Cup qualifier. 10 games were played on Saturday, actually finishing at 8.30pm, with the remaining 4 being played on Sunday morning. The reason for the time taken was that the majority of these games proved to be extremely close.

In the Blue group the top scorer was 18 year old Ryan Cabble from Nailsea and in second place with 9 wins was Ryde's Secretary Roy Tillcock, making a welcome appearance as player after many years of managing this tournament. In third place was Roy's doubles partner Robin Thornton with 8 wins.

In the Red group the top scorer was Dr. William Ormerod making his second appearance in the Ryde Tournament. Although there was a possibility of a tie for second place, Ryde's Richard Harris with 9 wins out of 14 was adjudged to be the second place holder over Chris Roberts of Phyllis Court Henley by virtue of one hoop, with Maggie Webb of Sussex County in fourth place.

The semi finals were 19 hoop games held on the same lawn and William Ormerod and Roy Tillcock were given a good start but unfortunately were soon caught up by the other pair. William was eventually declared the winner by 9 hoops to 6 when time was called.

The second semi final was much quicker with Ryan Cabble able to run hoops seemingly from all directions and at high speed! Richard Harris reckoned to be lucky to have gained as many hoops as he did in a 10-4 defeat.

In the final Ryan beat William in straight games 7-4, 7-5. Ryan won in 2009 and was runner up last year. In the play off for third and fourth positions the match went to the wire with Roy Tillcock managing to gain hoop 19 to beat Richard 10-9.

In the Plate Competition John Sim of Ryde beat Dave Willett in the top half semi final with a score of 7-5 and then went on to win the consolation event beating Keith Webb of Sussex County by a similar score.