The SECF Let Their Hair Down

It is almost a quarter of a century since the game of Golf Croquet took off almost exponentially as the main version of croquet played by the grass roots members of our croquet clubs and the SECF Committee felt that a yearly celebration of this move would be most appropriate.

So how best to do this? We felt we must bring together at one venue and on one day, as many of our members as possible for a GC based event. As it happens this was very easy to accomplish in our area with Southwick’s eleven lawns on our doorsteps and already a competition that was attracting sufficient members to attract over 100 players to one venue on one day. However, if the day was to be really memorable, there had to be other attractions and so we decided to introduce the carnival theme. The normal dress code would be thrown away and player asked to wear some form of themed apparel which was team based and brought in plenty of colour. Ordinary whites would still be acceptable, but some form of additional colour would be appreciated. As will be seen from our pics, some of our teams let their imagination run riot. This was encouraged with the odd bottle of wine as prizes. Even our own refereeing and time keeping team became Lawn Marshalls for the day and were clearly identified by their bright red shirts and Stetsons. As well as carnival based attire, we also asked that teams adopted carnival names.

And so on to the actual croquet. The days program was based on two separate competitions, a four round doubles handicap event in the morning followed by a similar four round singles event in the afternoon. Both would be played to conventional handicap rules. To get eight rounds and a lunch period completed and have an acceptable finishing time of no later than 6 pm, some very careful scheduling and choice of format had to be made. All games would time limited and always finished after the traditional eight strokes with ties being acceptable. Of course, one cannot allow self-timing of the games with the tight requirements and so starting and stopping of play was rigorously controlled by a Lawn Marshall with his air horn, acquired from the local ships chandlery. With these arrangements in place, it was relatively easy to allow only ten minutes between the stopping of one game and the start of the next. It did mean that players for the next game have to be waiting at corner four with additional turns sorted out by the time the previous game horn indicates stop.

There is no time for allowing later round opponents to be governed by the results of earlier rounds and all opponents are chosen on a random basis prior to the event. Normally two of the team’s four player will be required each round on a basis of one game on and one game off which certainly helps in the quick-change requirements.

Play in the afternoon singles has to be double banked to allow the maximum number of teams to be involved and this of course brings its own problems where both teams want to play the same hoop. In recent years we have been experimenting with a ‘shot gun start’ for double banked singles. This means that both games start at the same time using corners 4 and 2 and follow an identical shaped route around the course. In practice this means that the two games play each hoop number in a different sequential order. Using this order of play has one significant advantage, it makes the likelihood of the double bankers wanting to play the same hoop is most likely to come from a head on collision rather than the hare catching up with the tortoise. The former situation is far easier to resolve as to who plays the hoop first. We also found another sweetener for double banking disputes by ensuring that double banked games only ever have the same two clubs involved in both games.

After recovering from the shock of finding one team would not be arriving and finding sufficient ‘sitting out’ players to maintain the schedules, play got started as planned at 9.30am. The weather must have heard we had a carnival in progress and provided us with bright sunny conditions with a slight breeze which lasted all day. With Marshall Bob Clark on the horn trigger, we kept exactly on schedule and broke for lunch at 12.30. The catering team did us proud with a BBQ alternative to the cold lunch. The judging team, manager and marshals had been busy on deciding where the wine prizes should go but had a tie on team costume between the Emojinal Wrecks and the Lodsworth Hillbillies. The matter was supposedly settled by a short competition, the Emojies juggling with their decorated Tennis balls (part of their uniform) and the Hillbillies doing a line dance on the lawn. Needless to say, both were as bad as each other so it was settled by giving both a bottle.

Lunch time activities caused a slight delay and play restarted at 1.30pm. There were no reported problems with the shot gun start and we kept exactly on program during the afternoon getting the final round finished by 5.30 pm and the presentation completed well before 6.00pm

It was quite a bonus day for the Hove Beach Boys who walked off with both the singles and doubles trophies, scoring 3 wins in the doubles plus 11 points and 6 wins and 10 points in the afternoon. Surprisingly we had a similar situation with the second places in each event. The Good Lifers from Surbiton taking both second places, 3 wins and 6 point in the doubles and 5 wins and 6 points in the singles. Southwick Four Midables managed a third place in the singles and Reigate Rosetts took third in the doubles.

This event attracted quite a wide variety of handicaps ranging from -2 up to 12 with average team handicaps being between 4 and 8. I had a word with the -2 who felt the day had been very enjoyable and he would be back next year. The complete results are as follows:

Bill Arliss
Manager

The Imojinal Wrecks

The Lodsworth Hillbillies

The Reigate Rosettes

Hove Beach Boys plus trophy

He who should be obeyed

The Cheam Crackers Hang out here

Afternoon rest for the Catering Team

Yes, that one’s clean