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Aussie world champion wins Cammeray Croquet Classic

Roar Rookie
29th February, 2016
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Roar Rookie
29th February, 2016
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The third Croquet Classic was held last weekend at the Cammeray Croquet Club in Sydney. This is association croquet, rather than golf croquet (lyrical descriptions explaining the difference between the two games are invited). As sports go, it is a great challenge.

The Classic has become so popular, qualifying games are played prior to the tournament. This leads to the three-day event, with games contested among 16 players as a round-robin on the first day, and knock-out games thereafter.

As noted in the program, 13 of those 16 players are ranked within the world’s top 100 players. This is not a handicapped event, so players are meeting on merit on the day, whatever their age or gender.

The winner, Robert Fletcher of Victoria, played well throughout the tournament, including recording a series of 26 to nil wins. But scores can be deceptive; not necessarily reflective of excellence or achievement. They tell only part of the story.

Fletcher is current world champion in association croquet, having initially won the title in 2013, and is the first Australian to hold that title. It’s not that Australia came late to the game: both New Zealand and Australia found croquet addictive as early as the 1850s.  

Fletcher previously represented Australia internationally, as a member of the 2011 Australian team which beat the Kiwis in the association croquet trans-Tasman match. This close rivalry has continued, with New Zealand winning the most recent trans-Tasman in December 2015.

In that tournament, the teams played golf croquet across three Test matches, New Zealand won the first 15-9, Australia won the second 14-10. By the last game, at the end of a tie-breaker played late into the night and after a total of 72 games, New Zealand tied the third Test 12-12 and, as per tournament rules, thrillingly won the series on a count back.  

Playing croquet is difficult and variable. The court is nearly level, while the speed of the lawn varies throughout the day. For the Classic, both lawns were measured as running at 11.5 seconds, with hoops packed overnight, and therefore firmer in the ground in the morning, becoming looser later in the day. Particularly when playing a ball to go through a hoop, it is hit with great force and travels at speed.

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By the time of the final late on Sunday afternoon, the temperature was 27 degrees, with a light breeze trying to push away the Sydney humidity. The game requires precision, with Atkins Quadway metal hoops for the Classic set to three and 11/16 inches, with a plus-minus tolerance of 1/32nd of an inch. Even during the final, Fletcher hit a ball to pass through a hoop, only to have it held momentarily between the arms before popping back out. It is as if a billiard table’s corner-pocket could regurgitate, at speed.

Croquet is filled with measures and statistics. Results internationally are available live at the website Croquet Scores. It is not difficult to learn to hit the ball, even through a hoop, but it is difficult to master the game.

Where the statistics become more extraordinary is that Fletcher has been playing for only a relatively limited time. He competes against men and women, some of whom have been playing for decades. Not unlike golf, croquet is a game in which the player’s skill continues to improve over many years (even if that’s not evident some Saturday afternoons).

Fletcher is 22 years of age. In the final he played his brother Greg, a previous winner of the Classic. Together with their younger brother Malcolm, they were all members of the winning 2011 Australian team against New Zealand. The statistics include, unsurprisingly, that Fletcher is the youngest croquet player ranked World Number 1.

In its three years, the other winner of the Classic is Kevin Beard, a member of the 2015 Australian team. The Classic included many world-ranked players who also played in the 2015 Australian team: Wendy Dickson, Rosemary Landrebe, Peter Landrebe, Anne Quinn and Alison Sharpe. The excellence of play at the Classic, particularly by Fletcher, was very high.

So among your sporting endeavors, keep an eye on croquet. Although considered sedate, the programme for the Classic highlighted past incidents at quiet Cammeray. These included a circus elephant walking onto the lawn some years ago during ladies’ day and, in 1971, a delay in top dressing the lawn when a hand grenade was removed.  

And the difference between association and golf croquet? It’s not the union vs league comparison, not even field versus ice hockey, or billiards and snooker.  

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If you’ve watched the summer sky above Mount Buffalo in north east Victoria, you would see a sailplane race across the wide open sky, sustained by warm air ranging throughout the mountains.  

From an assisted launch it will glide for hours across a consistently changing and challenging envelope, variables invisible to the eye. This is association croquet.

On the same ‘playing field’, a hang glider launches from the mountain face but flies up and around, wind both under the sail and past your ears, turning, trying, chasing thermals, skimming ridges, soaring, artful. This is golf croquet.

And as it is for any flying, so in croquet: precision is important, with little room for error. In the final of the Classic, each player aligned shots (sometimes with a ball set behind the central peg), assessed the lawn, ran the hoops or waited for a chance to disturb the rhythm of the other player.  

Both young Australian men, playing at world championship level. It was a masterclass.

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