Southwick August Week
[<<] [>>] by Bill Arliss
26th August 2002
(AC - Mixed)
Manager John Low tried an experiment with the format this year and divided the week into three discrete two day tournaments. Mixed doubles were played on Monday and Tuesday, class events on Wednesday and Thursday and handicap events on Friday and Saturday. This appeared quite popular especially for those players who did not enter all three types of event as they only had to attend on the appropriate days. It is a practice that I feel could be considered by other week-long events.
A full week of dry and hot weather produced lawns that got more tricky as the week progressed. No TPs were completed in the main class event with the nearest being a blob in rover by Paul Castell after he had completed the three peels of a straight triple.
John Hobbs and Miriam Reader beat Jack Davies and Pam Mason to take the Howard Austin Cup for the mixed doubles with John Constable and Myra Gosney winning the consolation event. How much of the Hobbs/Reader success can be attributed to the new Hobbs 14ins head mallet was a point much debated as John's hit rate was rather awesome at times.
Southwick's Jack Davies played very steady croquet to win the main advanced event for the Abbey Challenge Cup with a 100% record. Paul Castell and Dave Mundy were runners up. The two other advanced events were Scott Cup, won by John Davey with Chris Constable runner up and the Daldy Cup won by a Tony Dix with Pauline Davey runner up. The class handicap event for the Monteith Bowl was won by Martin Rogers with Nigel Urban runner up.
Two knock out handicap competitions were held on the last two days with losers entering a mixed handicap Swiss. Val Whittle beat Jill Austin in the ladies handicap final and Nigel Urban beat Tony Dix in the men's event. David Mumford won the Swiss.
It is very pleasing to report that one entrant in the class and handicap events was a fifteen year old from Compton, Craig Oakley. Craig at present plays off 10, has a full range of shots and is extremely accurate with his shooting at all ranges. I am sure that when he learns how to disengage hyper drive at times and think his game through, his handicap will come down very quickly. A potential Mac Rob player for the future!!!