The Golf Croquet Singles Tournament Returns, After a Brief One Year Hiatus

2010 New York Croquet Club Golf Croquet Singles (Mini Tournament)

After a brief one-year hiatus, New York Croquet Club’s highly competitive Golf Croquet Singles Tournament has returned. The club’s mini tournament was held over the weekend of August 21st & 22nd, 2010 at the Central Park Lawn Sports Center in New York City. This year’s tournament upped the ante from 2008, with more matches per flight, more prize money, USCA sanctioning, and a better overall field.

Maintaining the usual relaxed start times of 10am for the club’s mini tournaments, some players had to play 3 or 4 matches in a row to complete the 6 block matches for First flight and 4 block matches for Second flight. After completing any outstanding block matches on Sunday, the top four players of each flight would battle it out in a classic single elimination playoff, while the next best players would play a single game for the plate event.

About a half hour before play started on Saturday, schedules were released and a mini-clinic was given to orient the newer players. In addition to the basic rules, the numerous and detailed collection of WCF’s striking and non-striking faults were presented. Immediately after, play commenced, and while most everyone forgot the litany of faults, a few called them in-game, both to each other and on themselves. Honor and good sportsmanship permeated throughout the rest of the tournament, as the players propelled themselves through their blocks. Due to some expedient playing, Saturday’s matches ended well ahead of schedule, a rarity in such a tournament especially, when the manager is also playing.

While rain was in the forecast for Sunday, the weather held off for the better part of the day. Following the completion of block matches, each flight began their playoffs and plates to determine the final order.

In the Second flight semifinals, Rebeca Bergofsky received a “bye” while Bettye Musham was absent due to a family emergency. In the other semifinal, newcomer Cody Aichele was pitted against Wendy Ward. While second seeded Wendy, showed no mercy in the block, her rapidly improving opponent rose up to defeat her in the semifinal (7-6). In the Second flight final, Rebeca, continued her dominance over the flight, as she quickly shut out Cody (7-2).

In the Second flight plate, Carla “the Hammer” Rueck faced off against Martine “The Guillotine” Fournage. Martine was the only person during the whole weekend, to achieve a perfect score (7-0) in block play, and thus we decided she should have an appropriate nickname! As fate would it, the Guillotine sent the Hammer back to the toolbox with a victory for the plate (7-3).

Meanwhile, on the adjacent court, the First flight semifinals were underway. In one match, the ever steadfast George Blake made a miraculous comeback from 1-4 to defeat the tournament manager, Tim Rapuano (7-4). In the other semi, rookie Justin Berbig was looking best to play against calm and collected Chuck Loving Jr. But when Justin could not make it, local favorite Ryan Thompson stepped up to the challenge, only to be eliminated by Chuck (7-1).

2008’s Golf Singles Champion, Ralph Charles and Peter “Lee Harvey” Timmins played the First flight plate event. While Peter received the reputation for being victorious over the club’s current and two past presidents, he was summarily dispatched by Ralph (7-4).

Immediately following conclusion of the semi finals and plate matches, George and Chuck got busy with their final game. But as fate would have it, the sky opened up with only a few wickets into the game. The rain came down hard and fast overwhelming all but the finalists. As spectators fled for safety of the clubhouse, the lawn flooded, making continued play impossible. With Chuck in the lead, they both called it at (5-3).

After escaping Sunday’s deluge, those who remained huddled in the NYCC clubhouse to get dry. There we took some pictures of the money winners. Pictures of the tournament can be viewed here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29148507@N06/sets/72157624688947375/

RESULTS

Timothy Rapuano,

Tournament Manager & Director

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