By BRIAN JAMIESON
Our One-day Open GC tournament regularly attracts a quality field of low-handicap players; people who are drawn by the one-day format and the quality of our courts. This year was no exception; neither the courts nor the weather were disappointing.
We welcomed young Josef Rakosnik, a Czech in the UK for the next week’s European Club League competition. He had arrived in the UK only the day before and was playing his first croquet of 2026.
The all-play-all format involved each player having seven games, so there was no hanging around. After the first few games the field split into a top half, who were winning most of their games and a bottom half, who were struggling against the power play and accuracy of the lower handicappers, notably Ian Burridge (Nottingham) and Guy Scurfield (Dulwich), both playing off -1.
Going into the seventh and final round, there were three on five wins — Burridge, Scurfield and Rakosnik. But the Czech was too far behind on net hoops, and Burridge and Scurfield were drawn to play each other.
In this deciding game. Burridge had the edge for the first few hoops, but Scurfield came back strongly to win successive hoops at the end for a 7-5 victory. Burridge thus ended up a creditable second. Nick Saxton (Cheltenham) finished with a win to edge past Rakosnik on hoop difference for third place
Scurfield had won the tournament in 2024, but last year choose to play in Mauritius rather than Blewbury. He describes his exploits there and in other equally exotic countries in his article in the current (April) edition of the Croquet Gazette.
Our picture shows Blewbury’s Open field, with champ Guy Scurfield third from left.