2023-05-09

AUSTRALIAN OPEN DOUBLES TOURNAMENT

The Australian Open Doubles Tournament  was held at Cairnlea 6^th to 9^th May 2023

Entries consisted of 21 pairs from around Australia, many of which were playing as a double pair for the 1^st time which made viewing very interesting. The weather was not initially favorable for this 4 day event with rain , cold wind and low temperatures, fortunately for the finals the weather did improve and was cool and clear for the finals.

The event was played as a round robin with the top 8 pairs going through to a knock out – positions 5 and 6 going into a Consolation final and the remaining players participating in a plate event.

Ed Wilson and Malcolm Fletcher made a very challenging doubles team and although losing one match in the rounds came through with flying colors to win the event showing why they both hold high Australian world rankings. Challenges came from many areas with second place going to a well known doubles partnering of  Brett and Janine McHardy. Third place was Marty Clarke  WA who partnered with Lindsay Patullo from Charlton Victoria an up and coming Victorian GC player who was competing in this event for his first time.

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2023-05-13

Australian GC Singles streaming this weekend

The Australian Open Golf Croquet Singles have reached the knockout phase.

The finals are being played at the Victorian Croquet Centre this weekend under blue skies and bright sun.

If you can't drop by, you can watch the live stream on Vimeo:
https://vimeo.com/event/3347135. 

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AUSTRALIAN OPEN SINGLES TOURNAMENT

The ACA Open singles tournament took place 10^th – 14^th May 2023 at Cairnlea. There were 52 entries in total with players from throughout Australia attending. It was pleasing to see the strong contingent of players from Victoria, WA, SA, NSW and QLD. For some players especially some younger players – Curtis Mead from Tasmania, Addison Matthews, Fran Wright from QLD, Ethan Gumbrell from Canberra; this was their first time at Cairnlea. We are always grateful to see some of the well-known faces who regularly compete at Cairnlea in this level of tournament and provide us all with strong competition at this level. This tournament included 5 of Australia’s highest world ranked players.

Weather initially was cloudy with some showers but quickly improved. Mornings were cool but clear.  Saturday and Sunday for the final provided us with the ability to sit around the court and watch a memorable final between Robert and Malcolm Fletcher.

The best of 5 final ended eventually after a hard fought tousle 7/6 in the 4^th match with Robert the outright winner. Malcolm pushed Robert extremely hard throughout the final and both players should be commended on the high level of croquet displayed.  There were many spectators who stayed or attended specifically for the final day and all were treated to a memorable display in wonderful sunshine.

For those unable to attend some of the Friday, Saturday and Sunday games were televised by “My Sport Live” and will be available on streaming for a period. Kate Patrick had arranged live streaming so thanks must go to her, the producers, technical crew and commentators both at Cairnlea and those who remotely provided commentary on the games.

As players requested we scheduled all other singles events to finish early on the Sunday morning so players had the ability to watch the main final as they requested . Players had the choice to shorten finals from Best of three 13 point hoops to 19 point games if that was a mutual agreement. This did seem very much appreciated which increased the number of spectators for the final event as all players stayed on to watch.

Due to the large number of players this year all 12 courts were double banked for all the qualifying period and much of the final events. As an organizer I would like to thank the players and referees for their patience and sportsmanship dealing with double banking and the inconveniences this can sometimes cause. Due to the number of games to be completed each day and shorter days of play (being outside the daylight savings period) games were commenced untimed but if hoop 8 had not been run by 65 minutes ( this 65 minutes included any time held up by double banking  etc) a 15 min time was applied and  players had to finish the current hoop they were on when the bell rang- if even on hoops then a golden hoop was played.

All players throughout the tournament had wins and losses. Initially players were divided into 4 blocks and played a round robin over 2.5 days. The top 4 from each group then proceeded into a knockout block of 16. The knockout order of play was decided by “players choice”.

Players who were 5^th and 6^th in their block proceeded into a consolation knock out tournament and those remaining players wishing to play on continued to the Maree Skinner Plate. The Plate was a 3 block round robin with 8 players proceeding to a knock out finals. It was wonderful to see especially the younger players Addison and Curtis in the semifinal.

Overall winners

ACA Open singles winner- Robert Fletcher ( BallaratVic)

                         Runner up – Malcolm Fletcher(Ballarat Vic)

                         3^rd Place   - Gary Phips (Bunbury  WA)

                         4^th Place- Jamie Gumbrell ( Canberra)

                         Y final winner – Owen Dickinson ( Essendon Vic)

                               Runner up - Peter Freer ( Canberra)

                         Consolation

                                Winner- Mark Scruton ( Canberra)

                                Runner up – Ethan Gumbrell ( Canberra)

                        Maree Skinner Plate

                                Winner- Addison Matthews  ( Laurel Banks QLD)

                                 Runner up – Philip DeAraugo ( Bendigo Vic)

 Our thanks again must go to the Cairnlea volunteers who had the courts in great condition for this event- special thanks to Lester Hughes, Kevin Beard, Owen Dickinson, Chas Quinn and the WA players Brett McHardy, Gary Phips and Marty Clarke who assisted with set up prior to the tournament. To Claire Keating for her support with financial running of Cairnlea and to the ACA GC selectors and Peter Freer in particular who spent hours sorting entries and rankings for this event.

We also welcomed new volunteers for assisting with day to day running of the event- Kris and Peter Spruzen who assisted with catering, Sue Downie and Sue Baker who assisted with day to day running of the event. Although we had no formal catering in the Cairnlea kitchen we were able to provide an efficient lunch order service so players and officials could have lunches delivered to the venue each day.

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