Green received most improved player award

PHYLLIS Court Croquet Club’s Julia Green has been judged the national most improved golf croquet female player for 2025 by Croquet England.

Green received her award at the club’s annual prize-giving dinner last week, from its president Frances Colman, on behalf of Jonathan Isaacs, the president of Croquet England.

This was a high accolade for Green, who won three national D-Level Series tournaments in 2025 on the way to becoming National D-Level Champion.

She improved her handicap from 11 to seven and her international ranking by +241 points, which is the highest tally of any female player in the world this year.

The bespoke bronze “jumping ball” Colman Trophy was commissioned and donated to Croquet England by Frances Colman when she was chairman of the governing body’s handicap committee six years ago.

The award to Green was a highlight of the prize-giving event which also included the honouring of Phyllis Court’s other national champions.

Patricia Mulcahy and Paul Franklin won both the National AC Seniors and Veterans Handicap titles this season, Dee McKibbin won the golf croquet C-Level Series and Chris Roberts the Welsh Championship.

Heading a long list of internal competition and tournament winners were club champions Roberts and Charlie von Schmieder.

Just before the prize-giving event, the deciding games of three outstanding association croquet competitions and tournaments were decided last week.

On Monday, Helen Essa beat Kevin Ward by a single hoop in extra time to win the final of the AC handicap knock-out competition in a low-scoring game.

With 20 minutes remaining on the clock, Essa had overhauled Ward’s slight lead and was ahead by one hoop, with all three of her bisques (extra turns) spent.

Eventually Ward got a crucial hit-in with both Essa’s balls left close to his target hoop, allowing him to tie the scores, but two attempts to take position for a winning hoop failed, by which time the game had progressed to a “next to score wins” scenario.

Essa over-hit her backward take-off, giving herself a far from easy angled hoop shot from three yards but scored with an excellent stroke to win the Adlam Cup.

On Tuesday, Patricia Mulcahy won the women’s AC handicap season-long competition with a 13-8 victory over Essa in the remaining game in a three-sided competition also including Frances Colman, who had first beaten Essa but then lost to Mulcahy last month.

This second win won the competition outright for Mulcahy who received the Orr Plate for the second time.

Double-banking with that game was the much-delayed decider of the AC Summer tournament which saw Jeff Smith take on Rob Eagle.

At the end of the two-day tournament back in August, Smith was tied with Roger Goldring on four wins from five games, and he held the head-to-head win advantage too.

However, Eagle was also on one loss (crucially to Goldring), but had played one game fewer, so the tournament result was held pending Eagle’s extra game.

Eagle needed a win to create a three-way tie, that the “who beat whom” rule could not break, but Smith won 13-5 to win the Caversham Plate outright for the first time.