Roberts crowned Welsh champion

PHYLLIS Court’s Chris Roberts won the Welsh Golf Croquet Championship last weekend for the first time with a remarkable run of last hoop victories.

Henley-based Roberts, who used to live in Penarth overlooking Cardiff Bay, made his first visit to the recently re-located Glamorgan Croquet Club at Merthyr Mawr, south of Bridgend, as the top seed for his third appearance in the national championships.

However, he had to settle for second place behind Sarah Melvin in the “all play all” block phase of games that straddled Saturday and Sunday when he won six of his eight games, the last two 7-6.

In the semi-finals, Roberts came up against Dave Evans who he had lost to in the block phase, and won 7-6 margin in two games.

In the final, Roberts romped away to big lead in his first game against Gary McElwan, whose father Jock had been a founder member of Phyllis Court Croquet Club, only for his opponent to peg him back to 6-6 for a last hoop decider.

A long battle ensued at hoop 13 before Roberts’s patience was rewarded for another slimmest of victories and an almost exact repeat performance was acted out in the second game as Roberts wrapped up the Championship with his sixth 7-6 win in a row.

Back at Phyllis Court, the Advantage tournament was won by Alastair Broom who won his morning block despite dropping a game to Ruth Raunkiaer, only to meet her again in the final as the pair vied for the club’s White Ball Trophy.

Broom beat club chairman Patricia Mulcahy 7-3 in his semi-final and Raunkiaer got past late call-up Gillian Symons 7-5 in hers and the final was another close one as Broom hauled back his opponent’s single-hoop handicap starting advantage to win 7-5.

The top four finishers had first refusal on advancement to the area final of the All England Handicap competition which will be held at Phyllis Court in July, but availability ruled out both Raunkiaer and Symons. Phyllis Court’s qualifiers will be Broom, Mulcahy and losing quarter-finalists Rob Eagle and Jeff Smith.

On the teams front, Phyllis Court C suffered a 9-7 loss to Caversham who won at Henley for the first time in the Southern Croquet Federation Advantage (handicap) league last week.

The C team got off to a tidy start, with Patricia Mulcahy, Hugh Crook and captain Rob Eagle all winning their first-round games for a 3-1 lead but then suffered a complete reverse of fortunes in the second round when only Helen Essa was victorious, as Caversham levelled the team match score at 4-4.

Caversham took that momentum into the deciding third round in which only Eagle won for Phyllis Court, and when only Essa and Crook won in the last round, the damage had been done, as Caversham triumphed 9-7.