2021 ASSOCIATION CROQUET
Saturday/Sunday 21st/22nd August The Tompkinson Shield A level advanced play for handicaps -1 to 5. Manager Andrew Gregory reports as follows:
Andrew Willis won the Tompkinson Shield at Edgbaston.
With just eight entries the Manager could not resist deploying a Draw and Process.
After one round of each, the two blockers were Andrew Willis and Neal Bacon.
Bacon then scored eight points in his next three games to fall from contention.
The two unlucky players on 0/2 were your correspondent and Nick Steiner.
Steiner went on to win 3/4 in the Swiz, and made the solitary triple peel of the event.
I won just one game, when my opponent (Adrian Morris) pegged me out.
Ah, to peg out or not? the eternal question.
In Bacon v Jonathan Wolfe, I presume the clips were something like 1 and 4-back v 4-back and peg. Bacon got in with his forward ball and pegged oppo out.
Later the clips had reached 2 and peg v peg and box. (Last year that would have been peg and bucket.)
Wolfe was tempted by a long double, missed, yielding a 3-ball break from which Bacon finished.
Gary Bennett was conducting his own research into pegging out. Three times the classic position was reached: 4-back and break v 4-back and peg.
Against me he pegged me out and won.
Against Steiner he pegged oppo out and lost.
Against Goode he elected not to peg out. Goode missed the lift; Bennett finished next turn.
By the end of Saturday Willis had reached the final of the Process.
On Sunday morning he beat Wolfe in the final of the Draw, while Goode beat Bacon in the semi-final of the Process.
In the final of the Process Willis reached 4-back and peg, with Goode, wouldn’t you know it, 4-back and break.
Goode elected to peg out Willis. A mere fifteen turns later, Willis won +4.
Willis had won the Draw and the Process. He was the only player to win an even number of games. And, like the 2020 winner Wolfe, it was his debut in this event.
The tournament is for handicaps -1 to 5. Next year entries from the upper half of this range are encouraged.
Winner: Andrew Willis
Runners-up: Jonathan Wolfe, Clive Goode
Swiz: Nick Steiner