Charity One Ball Final

Charity One-Ball Final 2021The Charity One-Ball Championship is an early-season fun event, open to all. This year's charity was the British Heart Foundation. Several records were broken, including the £7,658 (including Gift Aid) raised for the charity. 

The 2021 competition was far less affected by the pandemic than last year and we had 36 heats around the country and 454 players took part in them. Consequently, 42 players came to the final, run as a Swiss, on a summery day at Surbiton, enjoying its superb lawns, fabulous food and famous hospitality.
The 14 players with no more than one loss during the morning competed for the main prizes.  As the afternoon progressed they were down to four, all on 6/7.   One of these was our own Joel Taylor, described as "a top-flight player in both AC (with a 31st UK ranking) and in GC (25th in the UK)",  but who had to play off a OB handicap of -5.
He won his semi-final in a fascinating battle in which his opponent had 8.5 bisques, which is massive in a game of one-ball with twelve hoops to make. So Joel's plan was to hit in and take a break round to the peg. Although he did not achieve a finishing break, Joel did hit in several times and made two or three shorter breaks to put the game beyond doubt.
In the final Joel found Colin a more canny opponent and the game developed into a tactical battle, but Colin's four bisques were not quite enough to counter Joel's accuracy. So, Joel won the traditional engraved crystal decanter. 
Looking at the day as a whole, it was heartening that many of those with no pretensions to the prizes kept returning to the manager's desk to seek another game, just for the love of playing. Some notched up ten or eleven during the day.  The sign of a true, 'fun event'.

Report with thanks to Kevin Carter