Tuesday? Winter? It must be tournament time!

The promised (aka hoped-for) "crisp winter sunshine" showed up on a day of long shadows for the first Winter Tuesday GC handicap tournament today.  Eight HWCC members took part in a day of competitive croquet played with great good humour and sportsmanship.  Thanks to helpful preparation and briefing by Ian and Catherine Shore, the mysteries of the Advantage GC scoring system were successfully unlocked -- well, mostly! This enabled people to play 'pure croquet' as well as helping us get our heads around the system that may be used in 2022 for SCF League matches again.  

A majority of the morning games went to 7-5 or 7-6, which suggests that the handicapping system was working well.  In the afternoon, some tense games were played leading to a first place final between Nigel Clogg and Don Rutherford, won by Nigel on the 13th Hoop.  Tea and home-made cake rounded off the day. 

As tournament manager, I appreciated the spirit of the day, not least shown by people's unasked willingness to take down the gear at the end of the event.  Ian's kind offer to referee was taken up many times during the day, which, as he said, indicated a quality approach to members' play.  A good start to this series.

Chris Webbley