A world first for HWCC!

High Wycombe Croquet Club has a world first!
 
Our regional governing body the Southern Croquet Federation (SCF) are running the “Official World Trial” of a brand new style of handicap golf croquet called ADVANTAGE GC. The trial is on behalf of the World Croquet Federation (WCF) and the Croquet Association (CA), sanctioned by the CA's Handicap Committee.

The system was devised over the winter by a WCF Working Party which included HWCC Member Chris Roberts as the English representative, along with representatives from Australia, USA, Uruguay and Latvia.  The chief designer is mathematician Roy Tillcock (of Ryde CC on the Isle of Wight) who joined a the working party at the turn of the year.

ADVANTAGE GC does not employ the usual ‘extra turns’ to balance the chances of weaker and stronger players winning a game.  Instead, games are played ‘level’ but the weaker player is given a head start with the score-line, so instead of the game starting at 0 – 0, it might start at 0 – 3 (in favour of the weaker player). It has the potential to become more popular than the extra turns type of handicap play because the play is ‘normal’ and no extra tactics need to be learnt (as they do with the ‘extra turns’ game).

The SCF have re-christened their GC Handicap league as an ADVANTAGE GC League.  And the FIRST EVER competitive ADVANTAGE GC match was HWCC Kites vs Kestrels on 14th April 2021, a week ahead of Blewbury and Phyllis Court's first matches.   

So, A WORLD FIRST FOR HWCC!

Richard Peperell