On 23rd May we won our first round match of the Golf Inter-club Murphy Shield, against Bury St Edmunds. A strong team of Ed Dymock, David Collins, Mark Ormerod and Simon Whiteley travelled down to Suffolk to take on a similarly strong team from Bury (one handicap point between us) played on challenging lawns that put the “golf” back into golf croquet.
Played as best of three games, Ed and David initially found the conditions difficult and quickly lost their doubles against Mike Percival and David Crawford 3-7, 3-7. Mark started off strongest with a comfortable 7-4, 7-4 win against Chris Howell, while Simon narrowly lost his first game against Brian Cash 6-7, bounced back in the second to win 7-2, and came back from an initial 0-2 deficit to win the third 7-5. 2-1 to Dulwich by lunchtime.
In the afternoon Ed showed what he could by beating Mike Percival 7-0 in the first game, but wilted in the near 30 degree heat to lose the next two 2-7, 3-7. Meanwhile Mark and Simon wrapped up the match 4-2 to Dulwich with comfortable wins against Brian Cash (7-4, 7-1), and Chris Howell (7-2, 7-2) respectively. David also hit his stride with two very close games (7-6, 6-7) against David Crawford, with the third game abandoned. An excellent tea in shade and cooling breezes ended a successful trip.
The all important lunch... (thanks to Brian Cash for the photos)
....and tea
Meanwhile Simon Carter and Pierre Beaudry were both playing in the East Anglian Golf Croquet Open Championship at Colchester (neither was eligible for the Murphy Shield because their handicaps fell outside the permitted limits for our team). The final was between Simon and Pierre, with Simon retaining his title with a “demonstration of straight shooting” -no surprise there- according to the CA website report (http://www.croquet.org.uk/?section=news&page=newsdb.asp&NewsID=3394)
Congratulations to both Simon and Pierre.
Both these results demonstrate our strength in depth in Golf croquet. It should be a good season.