We are so grateful to Chris Clarke who has already begun sharing his commentary from lawnside at the Golf Croquet World Championship 2024. This article will be updated with the most recent comments, so check back regularly to keep up to date with all the action.
Following the WCF Golf Croquet World Championship 2024 by Chris Clarke
Another day of fabulous weather meant that spectators were kept warm as they watched the Plate final and Championship final. Yesterday, Sherif Abdelwahab from USA had won the Bowl and Edmund Fordyce from New Zealand the Shield.
The Plate final was between Patricio Garay Jnr from Spain and James Galpin from England. They provided an extremely entertaining match. The first two games were shared and James took a 5-1 lead in the decider which was soon 6-2. From there, Patricio played a sequence of good clearances and jumps to make it 5-6. At 12, Patricio cleared James and managed to get his ball into the h13 quadrant. James missed and it was 6-6. After James took position at 13, Patricio cleared and there was then a period of hitting and missing clearances and hoops until James ran 13 by the narrowest of margins - the players took 40 seconds to confirm it was through. James follows fellow Englishmen Euan Burridge and Aston Wade as a Worlds Plate winner.
The final started at 9.30 and was played best of five between Robbie Fletcher from Australia and Blake Fields from the US. Most players I spoke to expected a 3-0 or 3-1 win to world number 1 Fletcher who had been clearly the best player over the first eight days of the event. However, having seen Blake's game 3 in the semi-final, where he seemed to hit all his clearances and run all his hoops, I believed it had the potential to be much closer provided that Blake could settle into the match.
Game 1 - Robbie won the toss and took excellent position at h1 but, after Blake missed, failed the hoop finishing several yards away. Blake was able to run a more difficult hoop and had immediately broken to give him the start he wanted. From here, Blake took a 3-1 lead. I had been expecting Blake to run hoops and clear well, but the difference was the positional play where I had anticipated Robbie would be better, but in fact it was the other way around. At 6-4 and 6-5, Blake's play become much more conservative - even turning down a short h12 which gave Robbie a 13 yard clearance to get back into the hoop. However, Robbie missed and Blake took the opening game 7-5.
In game 2, Robbie took a shot at Blake's jawsed ball in h8 when leading 4-3. I had anticipated a jump shot, but the ball never left the ground and peeled Blake through 8 giving him the crucial first play to h9 which he converted into a 7-5 win. There were two key elements that I had taken into account regarding Blake's potential problems - he had overcome the first by settling quickly, the second was how would he fare if he managed to get one hand on the trophy?
The third game was an easy win for Robbie 7-3 as Blake started to miss many more shots. The warning signs were out - could Robbie capitalise?
After a long lunch break, the fourth game was more competitive with some good play from both players. Robbie won 7-5 to take us to a decider. I remember speaking to someone earlier who said that if Robbie could equalise, he would definitely win the decider and that was the general view. Blake made the most of winning the toss to take a 1-0 lead but failed h2 into the jaws leaving the easiest of jump shots for Robbie to be 2 balls to 1 up at h3. Robbie's jump shot missed on the left and Blake cleared the other ball getting over towards h3 and then took a 3-0 lead. At h4, Robbie missed a short clearance and it became 4-0. Hoop 5 saw Blake clear Robbie and Robbie miss back to allow Blake to run a long angled hoop to the N boundary to go 5-0 ahead. The biggest deficit overcome in a World's final deciding game was 5-1 down in the game between ElMahdy and Erian in 2015 - could Robbie make history? With the winning line in sight, would Blake become too cautious?
A good sequence of strokes at h6 from Blake forced Robbie into a 7 yard hoop attempt which he failed and it was now 6-0. I think most bookmakers would have offered 200-1 on Blake winning the 5th game 7-0, but after Robbie failed an angled hoop 7, a 5 yard straight hoop made the 18 year-old the youngest ever world champion. Blake had clearly played better than Robbie in the final and was a worthy winner, showing that even with firm challenging hoops, the Egyptian recipe of good positional play combined with power clearances and hoops run off the lawn could win a world championship. The one area where he was better than the Egyptian players was jump shots. When his game started to dip, he probably needed a more balanced set of tactical choices as I have said for several years about him. However, his poor positional play in previous events had been replaced by extremely good positional play that often achieved blocks and rarely failed to obtain position. This was the key area to Blake obtaining a 2-0 lead. When Robbie played to the level he had in the majority of the event, he won, when he failed to do so, his opponent capitalised which is easier said than done.
Blake thanked his family for their support and I have seen his father over many years now supporting his son at events around the world. The role of supportive parents cannot be underestimated. I had been personally frustrated by how long it had taken Blake to work his way up the rankings since having seen his excellent ball-striking skills as a 14 year-old. He started the event as world number 84 - but this week brought together the right combination of aggression and positional play to take him all the way - many congratulations.
Robbie played really good croquet for most of the week. His performance in the final was weaker, but perhaps some of that can be put down to the high standard of his opponent and the need to clear him from further away from hoops that against others Robbie would have played in against. It shows, once again, how difficult it is to win a World Championship. Most had expected Robbie to complete the third leg of the "Grand Slam" today, but the good news for him is that he gets another chance for leg 3 in Tasmania in February.
This has been a thoroughly enjoyable event where the best players made the hoops look easy, most players make them look difficult and generated a wonderful set of matches to help promote the sport. Many thanks to all the players for making such a great event and the vast army of referees, scorers and tournament officials. Chesapeake Bay has been a magnificent venue - only time will tell whether it becomes one of the most important legacies to the sport or a vanity project - I certainly hope for the former and many more world championships here for many decades to come.
Day 2 had glorious cloudless skies all day and a slight increase in temperature. There has been little wind to speak of, so all in all ideal conditions. The overnight news was that the manager and referee of the tournament had agreed that conditions were officially "difficult" and the hoops clearance would be doubled from 1/32" to 1/16" for the remaining block games. Despite this some matches had to be adjourned since it is dark at 6.30.
Angharrad Walters had the biggest win of the day beating Mohamed Nasr 7-6, 5-7, 7-4. Richard Bilton should have beaten Moe Karem, but lost games 1 and 3 from 6-5 up.
Both past U-21 World Champions, Felix Webby and Edmund Fordyce showed improved form with Edmund's 7-3 win against current U21 World Champion Aston Wade being particularly impressive. After two days, we have 4 players who have yet to drop a game - Robert Fletcher (yet to concede more than 4 points), Ahmed ElMahdy (who I haven't seen play a stroke yet), Yasser Sayed and Khaled Kamel.
We had an interesting piece of refereeing today. Players and spectators aren't allowed to forestall wrong balls and if they wish to assist, they must find a referee and tell them. Today, someone told a referee that a series of wrong balls were being played, the referee went onto the lawn and said that because he hadn't seen a wrong ball played, the player about to play must play the next ball in sequence. If this one instance in itself isn't enough to encourage the WCF to enforce at least making players sequence umpires, I don't know what is.
The venue continues to impress me. The layout is excellent, the lawns continually improve and the winner of this event will have played high quality croquet. I'm sure that anyone at even a 4 lawn club knows how much volunteer effort goes into hosting an event of this magnitude, so the fact we have 20+ scorers all day and 16 referees is a fabulous achievement. In addition to this, breakfast, lunch and dinner is available at the club and soft drinks are provided free to players - an exceptional effort that I hope future hosts don't feel obliged to match.
Hopefully we'll be able to complete some of the adjourned matches at the end of day 3 which will give everyone a better feel for how each block is shaping up. The weather forecast is excellent.
Chris
Day 1 of the 2024 GC World Championship started in bright sunshine, albeit only about 10 deg C. Most of the lawns had dew on them to start with, and were running at around 9 seconds, but increased to around 11 mid-afternoon, before reducing to just under 9 towards the end of play. The lawns are generally very flat and, combined with firm hoops, have proved to be an excellent challenge for all players.
As usual for the start of a World Championship, many players were a bit rusty, and a few upsets were registered. Most notably, Felix Webby, top seed in block H, lost both his matches, to Americans Tom Balding and Tamer Hatata. The only other two top seeds to drop matches were defending Champion Matthew Essick, beaten by Mexican Brian Lozano, and Jose Riva, who lost to the evergreen Stephen Mulliner. Players who will be pleased at the end of the day to have won two matches and beaten a higher seed include; Dom Aarvold, Addison Matthews, Brian Lozano, Blake Fields, Stephen Mulliner, Tom Balding and Tamer Hatata.
The two players who impressed me most today were Mohamed Nasr, who came from game down to beat Amr Alebiary, looking particularly strong in his following 4 games. And my pick of the day Robbie Fletcher, who just looked in immediately strong form. A few session 4 matches were adjourned due to darkness.
I’ll be sending some drone photos, kindly provided by Brian Hovis, to Debbie Lines and Alison Maugham, for them to share on WCF and Croquet England social media.
Looking forward to Day 2.
Chris
Tomorrow sees the start of the 2024 GC World Championships. It is being held at the new Chesapeake Bay croquet club which has 24 lawns. I am typing from the “media centre” – a 2 storey building with elevated views over 16 of the lawns.
I have been quite impressed so far – this will make a good croquet venue for major events. Where I point out areas of weakness, these are to be expected from such a new club.
So, from my media position there are 16 lawns laid out in 4x4 Pattern with the Western boundaries closest to me. I am sitting level with the peg on the lawn in the bottom right hand corner. These 16 lawns are all slightly imperfect and a bit slow (around 10 seconds), The grass has been well mown, but cores have been taken on some lawns recently to try and assist drainage and filled with sand, so there is the occasional sand trail and some bobbly patches. The lawns are coloured light green to straw and the hoops (Quadways) appear to be fairly firm in the ground. We are using the brand new Dawson balls (I’m going to call them Mark 4).
I believe that the plan is to live-stream some of the play from the four lawns in the bottom right hand quadrant. Regrettably, the obvious "show lawn" is one of the worst at the venue and there is discussion about whether to use it at all.
To the right of the media centre is the players pavilion and I haven’t yet dared to enter that, so I’ll ask Jenny for a report. To the right of that are 8 high quality lawns, set out in a 4x2 pattern E/W. These lawns are faster (maybe 11-12 seconds but the northern half of the 4 lawns to the North is faster still – maybe 13-13.5 seconds as the nearby trees have sucked out the moisture. In this area, there is minimal grass. These 8 lawns look like a really good test of skill.
In between the two sets of lawns is a large open-sided white marquee for players/spectators and a manager’s tent, There are 6 open-sided shelters shared between the 16 lawns. There is a large equipment shed to house the club’s two triplex mowers and finally Macey White’s house towards the top right corner. In addition to this, I would estimate there is parking on grass for about 150 cars – maybe more.
The weather is currently dry and cold (about 10 degrees) but is expected to reach the low twenties from tomorrow.
The blocks are now up on croquetscores and look fairly balance to me. Some quick highlights
Block A – My favourite for the event, Robert Fletcher is joined by runner-up in yesterday’s “Big Oyster” tournament, Sherif Adbelwahab.
Block B – Current Over 50 World Champion and 2016 GC World Champion Ahmed ElMahdy is joined by Andres Alvares-Sala.
Block C – The top 6 players have all won medals in WCF events
Block D – Mohammed Nasr is joined by the world number 23 and multiple GC World Champion, Reg Bamford.
Block E – Current World Champion Matt Essick faces past and current U21 World Champions Edmund Fordyce and Aston Wade with the ever-improving Brian Lozano making up a strong top 4.
Block F – past Champion Ahmed Nasr is joined by current European Champion Jose Alveres-Sala. Gary Phipps, winner of the Big Oyster will provide a good challenge to Kyle Maloof, Sam Cuthbert who won the qualifier and Blake Fields – a tricky block.
Block G – Jose (Pepe) Riva is joined by Khaled Kamel and veteran Stephen Mulliner.
Block H – Felix Webby and the strong Moe Karem will both be expected to qualify, so players like Balding, Hatata, Bilton and M. Alvares-Sala will probably be fighting for the other 2 qualifying spots.
For those of you who are new to this event, this the format
Days 1-4 Two best of 3 block matches
Day 5 Last best of 3 block match followed by play-offs for those tied for 4th/5th etc
Day 6 Last 32 and last 16 of knockout best of 3
Day 7 Quarter-finals best of 5
Day 8 Semi-finals best of 5
Day 9 Final best of 5
Consolation events start on Day 6
Live-streaming will be available USCA YouTube - First session link
I hope everyone enjoys some high good matches.
Another beautiful sunny day and the manager was able to finish off a few adjourned matches. The hoops are still testing despite being in 4 day old holes and all players have now lost at least one game. To give a quick summary of where we are with just a few games still in play (some players have been offered the chance to play on under lights).
Block A - Robert Fletcher and Sherif Abdelwahab have qualified and Omar Fahmy and John Richardson are favourites to join them
Block B - Ahmed ElMahdy has qualified and 6 players are still alive fighting for the other 3 spaces
Block C - Yasser Sayed, Ben Rothman and Jenny Clarke have qualified. The last round match between Euan Burridge and Jamie Gumbrell will decide the final place.
Block D - Mohamed Nasr, Reg Bamford and Angharrad Walters have qualified with Stephen Morgan controlling his own fate.
Block E - Matthew Essick and Edmund Fordyce have qualified with Aston Wade and Brian Lozano having their fate in their own hands. Aston is 1-1 against Khaled Tharwat.
Block F - Ahmed Nasr and Blake Fields have qualified. Jose Alvares-Sala is likely to qualify whilst Gary Phipps and Kyle Maloof control their own fate.
Block G - is all very messy since Adam Barr and Danny Huneycutt have both withdrawn.
Block H - Moe Karem has qualified. Tom Balding and Tamer Hatata control their own fate and Felix Webby and Richard Bilton will be hoping to get to 6 wins for at least a play-off.
I watched Matthew Essick v Edmund Fordyce this morning. The first game was wonderfully entertaining. Over 60 yards of hoops were run, multiple jump clearances were hit from Edmund, but his positional play was poor and Mathew won 7-4. Edmund made a 12 yard jump over a ball to run h12 and win the second 7-5, but both players were missing more 7-10 yarders than will be acceptable in the knockout. Matthew easily won the decider 7-2.
Mohamed Nasr went game down to Bamford before running h13 from C3 in the second and taking the match 7-4. Reg was also in trouble against Australian youngster Addison who went 5-2 up in the decider with a series of excellent shots but failed to increase his score from there.
Yasser Sayed has an infection in his thumb which is causing him problems. Tom Ingram won Hong Kong's first match in a WCF event - congratulations Tom! However, the biggest upset was from Englishman Tim Russell who beat Jose Riva 7-6, 7-5 which may be enough to get him a play-off.
I think the livestream starts tomorrow where we will have the final block round with 4ths v 5ths and 3rds v 6ths which are often crucial followed by finishing adjourned games and any play-offs for those involved in ties for 4th/5th.
Chris
Editors notes: The livestream is planned to start on Tuesday for the play off sessions. Please follow the link and subscribe to the YouTube channel to be notified when the games are live.