Category: Old Championship Posts

The World Championship will be held at Cairnlea, Melbourne (and other venues) from Saturday, 25 February to Sunday, 5 March 2017 in accordance with version 4.8 of the Event Regulations and version 8.8 of the Sports Regulations.

The Event Capacity will be 80.

A Qualifying Tournament will be held at Cairnlea from Monday, 20 February to Wednesday, 22 February 2017 from which the two highest-placed finishers will gain Qualifying Places in the GCWC.  If places are returned after the Cut-Off Date (see below), additional Qualifying Places will be created.

A play-off will be held for two more Qualifying Places on Thursday, 23 February 2017 between the two highest-placed finishers in the Qualifying Tournament who have not already gained Qualifying Places and the two highest-placed and available finishers in the Under 21 Golf Croquet World Championship who have not already gained a place in the GCWC.

Details of how to enter the Qualifying Tournament will be made available in due course.

 

TIMETABLE

RESPONSE DATE: Sunday, 31 July 2016

This is the date by which all WCF Members are requested to inform the WCF Management Committee:

(a) if they want to take up their Membership Place or Places;

(b) the names of their eligible players who want a Ranking or Membership place in the Event; and

(c) the names of any of those players they wish to nominate for a Wild Card Place.

Individual players who are affiliated to a WCF Member and want to gain a place in the Event must announce their availability via their Member.  However, if a player is not affiliated to a WCF Member and is not eligible to represent any WCF Member, they should contact the Secretary-General directly.

The other timetable dates set out in Appendix 2 paragraph 3 of the Sports Regulations, version 8.8 are:

ALLOCATION DATE: Sunday, 14 August 2016

The highest grades achieved by players in the year ending on this date will be used to determine the initial allocation of Ranking Places.

ANNOUNCEMENT DATE: Sunday, 28 August 2016

The players who have been awarded Ranking Places and Wild Card Places will be announced on this date.

CLOSING DATE: Sunday, 25 September 2016

This is the last date on which Members can nominate players for Membership Places.

QUALIFYING TOURNAMENT ALLOCATION DATE: Sunday, 25 December 2016

Entries for the Qualifying Tournament received by this date will be accepted in ranking position order as shown in the Qualifier Ranking List which is itself calculated as at the end of the QTAD.  If the Qualifying Tournament is over-subscribed on this date, unsuccessful entrants will be placed on a Reserve List, also in ranking position order.

CUT-OFF DATE: Sunday, 8 January 2017

This is the date after which any returned Ranking Places or Wild Card Places are filled by creating extra Qualifying Places.

QUALIFYING TOURNAMENT CLOSING DATE: Sunday, 5 February 2017

This is the last date on which entries can be received to fill vacancies in the Qualifying Tournament.  It is also the last date on which any returned Membership Place can be replaced by a player from the same country.

 

New Zealand held a 4-2 lead overnight but saw the match tighten to 5-4 after the morning doubles and two singles.  A crowed of well over 100 watched the final four singles.

Ahmed Nasr kept Egyptian hopes alive by defeating Duncan Dixon 7-4, 7-6 but, in the bottom singles, where Egyptian hopes were probably highest, it was the turn of Jenny Clarke and Phillip Drew to rise to the occasion.

Jenny defeated Mohamed Nasr 7-4, 5-7, 7-3 and Phillip beat Hamy Erian 7-6, 7-6.  This gave New Zealand an unassailable 7-5 lead and the match between Chris Clarke and Mohamed Karem was abandoned at 6-6 in the second game, the first having gone to Chris 7-5.

The New Zealand team was presented with their winner’s medals by Amir Ramsis, the WCF President and the Openshaw Shield by David Openshaw himself.  Quiller Barrett, the President of the Croquet Association, paid a warm tribute to the great efforts made by the teams of vounteers at the host clubs of Surbiton, Bath, Camerton & Peasdown and Guildford & Godalming.

 

 

The Rest of the World team beat Egypt by 11-10 at the Hurlingham Club, London to retain the Ramsis Cup.

The teams were well-matched but, after the first day’s play, RoW led 7-5, winning the doubles matches by 4-2 and sharing the six singles 3-3.  On day 2, Egypt won two of the three final doubles matches to reduce the deficit to 8-7 by lunch.  Egypt then won three of the second round singles matches to square the match at 9-9.  In the decisive last three singles, 26-year old Mohamed Karem played extremely well to beat Robert Fulford 7-4, 7-1 and give Egypt the lead by 10-9 for the first time in the match.

However, Reg Bamford then produced his best form to repeat his 2008 victory against Ahmed Nasr, winning 7-5, 6-7, 7-4.  In the last match to start, Stephen Mulliner, the RoW captain, lost the opening game 6-7 but took the mext two 7-5, 7-4 to take the match and secure the Rest of the World victory.

Stephen Mulliner (ENG) and David Maloof (USA) contested an 11.5 hour five game final in the Association Croquet World Championship at the National Croquet Center, West Palm Beach.  For the first time, live video streaming was available as well as a court-side commentary on CroquetScores.

Mulliner and Maloof ensured that there would be a new name on the Wimbledon Cup and, as both are 62, that the new World Champion would be the oldest ever winner, let alone for the first time.  Maloof is a professional tennis coach who has made rapid progress in US and world croquet in the last few years.  He has one of the best swings in the game and is renowned for his calmness and infrequency of error.  He had accounted for Paddy Chapman (NZE), the 2013 runner-up, and David Maugham (ENG), a stalwart of the England team, in the quarter and semi-final rounds, two major scalps.  He was a deserved winner of the first two games of the final and was tantalisingly close to winning 3-0 after over 7 hours’ play in the bright Florida sunshine on a tricky court.

Mulliner discovered croquet at Cambridge University in 1975 and soon rose to the top of the Engish game, winning the President’s Cup in 1981, a feat he repeated on four further occasions.  He has also won the British Open Championship three times, the last in 2000 when his opponent was none other than Reg Bamford.  Mulliner had survived close encounters with Stephen Forster (AUS) and Danny Huneycutt (USA) in the last 16 and quarter-final rounds and could easily have lost to either player.  Both matches went to a fifth game and he made it through to meet Reg Bamford (SAF), a four-time AC World Champion, and the firm favourite to make it a fifth in 2016.

Bamford soon established a 2-0 lead including an extraordinary sextuple peel in game 1 in which he overcame several probems and brought the break to a thrilling and successful conclusion.  He offered Mulliner a glimpse of hope in game 2 when a second sextuple was apparently heading for a smooth and much more routine conclusion when he failed to run a short penultimate hoop.  However, Mulliner had his own problem at the same hoop and Bamford soon made the score 2-0 in his favour.  Mulliner responded by hitting a long roquet in turn 3 of game 3 and reaching 4-back with a good leave.  However, Bamford had been in remorseless hitting form and made no mistake with the 19 yard shot down the East boundary. Shortly afterwards, he had laid up for a third sextuple and given Mulliner a 35 yard shot to stay in the match.  Lady Luck now intervened and Mulliner’s shot clipped the ball he could barely see behind a hoop.  He seized his chance and completed a triple peel to win +20tp and extend the match.  In game 4, Mulliner hit in turn 4 and decided to lay for his own sextuple so that Bamford would face a 30 yard shot.  Bamford missed and Mulliner brought home a sextuple with almost as many adventures as Bamford’s effort in game 1.

The fifth game was short and simple.  Mulliner hit in turn 3 and went to 4-back.  Bamford this time just missed the 19 yard shot down the East boundary and Mulliner made no mistake with a delayed triple peel to take the match and claim his place in the final for the third time in his 40 year playing career, the others being in 1997 (when he lost 3-1 to Robert Fulford (ENG) in Bunbury, Western Australia) and in 2008 (when he also lost 3-1 to Chris Clarke (ENG) in Christchurch, New Zealand).

Against Maloof in game 3, Mulliner was pegged out when for 4-back with his remaining ball.  He had to hit a 26 yard shot across court to get a chance of finishing and made two hoops before failing to approach rover.  Maloof missed a 13 yard roquet and Mulliner took this unexpected second chance by running rover and hitting a 13 yard roquet to gain an easy peg-out and stay alive in the match.  Maloof gained an early advantage in game 4 but missed a return roquet after 1-back and Mulliner was able to reach peg and penultimate against 2-back and 4-back before Maloof regained the innings with an 18 yard roquet.  Both players then hit long shots alternately but Mulliner had the last and was able to finish and level the match 2-2.  

By now it was after 7 p.m. and the light was going to become an issue.  The players agreed to move to a floodlit court and have an extended warm-up on the new surface. After two early errors on which Maloof was unable to capitalise, Mulliner reached 4-back with a good leave.  Maloof missed his 18 yards roquet attempt and Mulliner calmly conducted a delayed triple peel to a successful conclusion to take the game, the match and the title.  He had been obliged to play twenty games of high-intensity croquet in four consecutive days to achieve victory and his reputation for determination, focus and the will to win could not have been more searchingly tested.

The prize-giving was conducted by David Openshaw on behalf of the World Crouet Federation, and Johnny Mitchell, the President of the United States Croquet Association.  The efforts of the officials and the large number of volunteers were publicly recognised and received great appreciation from the players and the audience.  A warm tribute was also paid to the recently late Bernard Neal who had done much to help the development of croquet in both the UK and the United States in the 1970s and 1980s.  As a committee member of the All-England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, it was he who arranged for the donation of the magnificent Wimbledon Cup by the AELT&CC to be the trophy for this championship.

See 2016 ACWC Block Draw

	Block A			Block B			Block C			Block D
1	Robert Fletcher	AUS		Reg Bamford	SAF		David Maugham	ENG		Paddy Chapman	NZE
2	Qualifier 1			Peter Landrebe	AUS		Pete Trimmer	ENG		David Maloof	USA
3	Jenny Clarke	NZE		Jose Riva	ESP		Duncan Reeve	SCO		Greg Fletcher	AUS
4	Matthew Essick	USA		David Walters	WAL		David Openshaw	ENG		Jacques Fournier	USA
5	Ian Burridge	WAL		Gabrielle Higgins	ENG		Jeff Soo	USA		Keith Aiton	ENG
6	Debbie Lines	ENG		Harry Fisher	ENG		Stuart Lawrence	USA		Mark Ormerod	ENG
7	Claire Bassett	AUS		Doug Grimsley	USA		Callum Hyland	AUS		Alan Walsh	AUS
8	Robert Hurst	USA		Qualifier 4			Edmund Fordyce	NZE		Sam Murray	SCO
9	Annabel McDiarmid	ENG		John Christie	NZE		Alan Honey	AUS		Q5
10	Andrejs Savinovs	LVA		Christophe Bergen	AUT		Tudor Jenkins	WAL		Bruno Hess	GER
	Block E			Block F			Block G			Block H
1	Stephen Mulliner	ENG		Samir Patel	ENG		Jeff Dawson	ENG		Ian Dumergue	AUS
2	Gavin Carter	ENG		James Death	ENG		James Hopgood	ENG		Ben Rothman	USA
3	Danny Huneycutt	USA		Jim Nicholls	AUS		Stephen Forster	AUS		Alain Giraud	ENG
4	Marcus Evans	ENG		Ian Lines	ENG		Chris Williams	WAL		Danny Johnston	IRE
5	Kevin Beard	AUS		Dwayne McCormick	AUS		Brian Cumming	CAN		Robert Wilkinson	ENG
6	Michael Wright	NZE		Q2			Paul Bennett	USA		Steve Jones	NZE
7	Q3			Chris Patmore	USA		Richard M Smith	ENG		Stephen Morgan	USA
8	Jim Bast	USA		Peter Filbee	NZE		Felix Webby	NZE		Christian Carter	ENG
9	Campbell Morrison	SCO		Harper Peterson	USA		Mike Taylor	USA		Q6
10	Peter Just	USA		Paul Emmett	CAN		Q7			Richard Griffiths	JER

History

The Ramsis Cup was donated by the World Croquet Federation in 2008 to be the trophy awarded to the winners of a Golf Croquet Test Match between teams of six representing Egypt and the Rest of the World.  The first Ramsis Cup Test Match was held at the Roehampton Club in London on 8 and 9 August 2008.  The format was the same as that used in the MacRobertson Shield, namely nine doubles matches and twelve singles matches.

In August 2008, every one of the eight GC World Championships from 1996 to 2008 had been won by an Egyptian, including the most recent earlier in that year in South Africa where Ahmed Nasr had defeated Reg Bamford (SAF) in the final.  The Egyptian team was formidable, headed by Ahmed Nasr (world champion in 2004 and 2008), Mohamed Nasr (world champion in 2006) and Khaled Younis (world champion in 1996, 1998 and 2002) together with Helmi Abdelgayed, Ahmed El Mahdi and Yasser Esmat.

The Rest of the World team was the strongest that could be found, consting of four UK-based players, namely Reg Bamford, Rutger Beijderwellen, Robert Fulford and Stephen Mulliner and two flown in from New Zealand and the USA, Chris Clarke and Sherif Abdelwahab.

Somewhat unexpectedly, and possibly aided by some wet weather on the Sunday, the Rest of the World team put on a superb performance and emerged the winners by the narrow margin 11-10.  Reg Bamford had the satisfaction of securing the winning point with a straight games defeat of Ahmed Nasr and thereby gaining some revenge for his defeat earlier in the year in the world championship final.

The 2016 Test Match

Eight years have since elapsed and the WCF was delighted to respond positively to a request from the Egyptian Croquet Federation that a Ramsis Cup Test Match might be held immediately before the GC World Team Championship in May 2016.  The WCF is most grateful to the Croquet Association for agreeing to act as national host and to the Hurlingham Club for providing the lawns.  The event will be held on Friday 13 May and Saturday 14 May and will follow the same format as in 2008.

The following teams have been selected by the Egyptian Croquet Federation and the WCF Management Committee.

Egypt	Ahmed Nasr
	Hamy Erian
	Mohamed Karem
	Mohamed Nasr
	Mohamed Taha
	Amr Baher
Rest of the World	Reg Bamford
	Robert Fulford
	Stephen Mulliner
	Danny Huneycutt
	Sherif Abdelwahab
	Will Gee

 

 

Details of the Tier 1 and Tier 2 squads and teams may be found at Tier 1 squads and teams and at Tier 2 squads and teams.

 

2016 Golf Croquet World Team Championship Tier 1

The following squads and teams have been announced.

Egypt	Amr Baher (C)
	Hamy Erian
	Mohamed Karem
	Ahmed Nasr
	Mohamed Nasr
	Amir Ramsis
England	William Gee
	Stephen Mulliner (C)
	Rachel Rowe
	Tobi Savage
	Lionel Tibble
Ireland	Jack Clingan (C)
	Patsy Fitzgerald
	Evan Newell
	Charlie von Schmieder
	Simon Williams
New Zealand	Paddy Chapman
	Chris Clarke (C)
	Jenny Clarke
	Mike Crashley
	Duncan Dixon
	Phillip Drew
South Africa	Reg Bamford (C)
	Victor Dladla
	Judith Hanekom
	William Louw
	Chris Wakeham
Sweden	Simon Carlsson (C)
	Joi Elebo
	Lewis Palmer
	Anton Varnas
Wales	Peter Balchin
	Ian Burridge
	John Evans
	David Walters (C)
	Chris Williams
United States	Sherif Abdelwahab
	David Bent
	Ahab Dincer
	Danny Huneycutt
	Rich Lamm
	Ben Rothman (C)