Over the weekend of 27&28 August, eight players met to do battle in the Blewbury Super-B AC Advanced tournament. For the avoidance of confusion, I will note that the “super-B” refers to the range of handicaps that are allowed when entering the tournament (-1 to 6) and not that it is played to super-advanced rules. More than one person has been caught out by this!
The lawns were in excellent condition on the Saturday morning and all the players commented on this, mostly along the lines of “wow, they are green”. The weather was nice and sunny, if a little humid and everyone appreciated the gazebo and the umbrella.
The tournament was organised as a six-round, all-nearly-plays-all arrangement. There is not quite enough time for everyone to play each other. After the first day’s play, David Marsh was in a strong position, being the only player to have won all three of their games, including a triple peel in the first game, but there were three players chasing him on two wins each.
On the second day, there was an extra challenge due to court 2 drying out just south of hoop 1, making hoop approaches rather tricky. I was longing from some tips from Eve Murihead when I failed (again!) to get into a hoop running position for hoop 1.
Once the dust had settled, Beatrice McGlen emerged victorious. Both she and David Marsh had won five games each, but Beatrice beat David in their game.
We had two excellent lunches provided by Susan Tilbrook (on Saturday) and David Long (on Sunday).
As the players were departing, there was much talk of “see you again next year”. This is clearly a “must-do” event on the croquet calendar.
