This is a report by Patricia Mulcahy who was Ireland’s sole representative at the World GC Championships held in North Carolina in October.
80 players from 17 countries gathered at Chesapeake Bay Croquet Club (CBCC) for the opening ceremony on 17 October. I had the honour of carrying the Irish Flag and appeared in a bright green blazer in the group photograph. CBCC boasts 24 courts and games were single banked throughout. The courts were notably sandy and instead of the usual white painted lines, string defined the boundaries. With quad hoops set to 1/32nd of an inch, many hoop shots rebounded.
Play began at 8.30am every morning, with dew covering the lawns but by 10am when the sun was high, lawns played much faster. The organisation was thorough and efficient. A large number of volunteers had been recruited from as far away as Chicago. Referees were each allocated a block of four courts. Every lawn had a human scorekeeper to operate what looked like a digital scoreboard (actually a metal board with reversible black and green tiles which were fixed by elastic and could be flipped over as required) to indicate the score. Each player had a little name board printed with their name and country flag. There were 8 blocks of 10 and the schedule showed the sequence of games each of us would play, and the allocated lawns.
When a game was scheduled, two name boards were stuck on a central board, with the court number written in between. You took your board the designated court, and when the result of the coin toss was known, stuck it to the scoreboard on the blue/black or red/yellow side. Details of each match were printed on small squares of paper with the names of the players, start time, court number and boxes for writing results. At the end of a match, you returned your name board to the tent, the winner wrote down the score and both players signed the chit. During the game, you raised your hand to indicate that you had run a hoop. Each match was best of three and the later games were listed for 10.30am, 1.30pm and 3.30pm but obviously this did not always run to time when games lasted longer than assumed. But since you always knew which court you’d be going onto, you could track the progress of the preceding match. Some days you were listed for 8.30am, others for 10.30am starts. Sundown was around 6.15pm, and a few matches were pegged down.
I was in B Block and played Dom Aarvold (England), TeKiri King (New Zealand), Paul Neubecker (USA), Air Hamdy (Canada), Greg Fletcher (Australia), Mohamed Walid (Egypt) and Ahmed Elmandy (Egypt).
With block games due to finish on the Tuesday, the knock out draw and gala dinner were arranged at the nearby Piankatak Golf Club, generously funded by Beverley and Randy Cardo. Since the final games of the block were still in play as we sat down to eat, we were denied the drama of the draw.
Given the competition, my baseline was not to lose any game 7-0. I did manage to achieve that, and I did make my opponents work for their wins. I took one game from Paul Neubecker and might have won the match had I not inadvertently touched my ball when lining up to clear him from just in front of hoop 13. My next best effort was against block seed number one, Ahmed Elmandy. I found myself leading by 4-1. When we arrived at hoop 13, I had a jump shot, which hit the hoop. I lost the match but he said I’d given him the toughest 13 he’d played all week. I took that as a great compliment and I got a handshake from Tournament Director, Jeff Soo.
That left me in the Plate where I managed to beat Alexander Kirsten (Germany) 7-1. He then beat Kyle Malouf (USA) 7-3. My next was against Kyle, who beat me 7-1. Croquet is a funny game. I played a couple of Zed games (for players who had no further matches to play) and lost both. I turned my attention to watching the finals hoping to learn something from the best in the world.
Saturday 26 October was Finals Day. In the Plate final, James Galpin (England) led Patricio Jnr Garay (Spain) 6-1 in the final game. Patricio gamely battled back to 6-6, but James held on to win. The main final was a blockbuster between Blake Fields (USA), who had turned 18 only the week before, beating the fancied Robert Fletcher (Australia) 7-0 in their last game. You can see it on YouTube.
Chesapeake Bay is a beautiful part of the world. It’s worth looking at a map to understand just how much of the area is water. I stayed at Flowering Fields, an excellent B&B a mile off the highway between Kilmarnock and White Stone, about 30 minute drive from the club. This involved crossing the 1.9 mile Norris Bridge over the Rappahannock River, described by some as a white knuckle drive, with narrow lanes and unnerving overtaking permitted. Our hosts offered all sorts for breakfast, crab cakes a specialty, but I couldn’t face them at 7.30am. The house was old, and had been dismantled and removed back from the waterfront to avoid British canon fire in the war of 1812. I’d studied American history and enjoy reading the biographies of early American presidents. I'd just finished reading a dual biography of Jefferson and Madison, so many of the place names rang bells, as I drove around.
I stayed on for three days to do some sightseeing: day one was Jamestown, Williamsburg and Yorktown, day two Arlington cemetery and a whistle stop tour of Washington, day three Jefferson’s estate at Monticello and lastly, Virginia’s state capital Richmond, with its Civil War Museum on the way to the airport.
What I am especially pleased to report is the number of players and volunteers who approached me to speak of the warm welcome they had enjoyed at Carrickmines and most of them mentioned Simon Williams with great affection. I had the time of my life and hope I added just a little to Ireland’s presence on the international croquet scene.
