Walker Cup 2013

17 August 2013, Meadows

The Walker Cup is open to players of handicap 10 and over.  This year there were nine entrants, ranging from Ian Wright, David Houston and Alasdair Adam at 14 to Roger Binks and Campbell Thomson at 20, with Jola Jurasinska, Alistair Malcolm, Brian Cosford and Richard Sparrow at 18 completing the field.

The tournament was played as four rounds of 18-point games (all clips starting on hoop 5) with full bisques off a base of 10.  Jola and Alistair each won their first two games, and they played each other in round 3, where Jola came out ahead.  Alistair won a very close fourth-round game against David, but Jola also won (against Brian) to stay one game ahead and take the cup.  Her handicap came down from 18 to 16 as a result of the day's wins.

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Edinburgh Tournament 2013

5-10 August 2013, Fettes College

After a noticeably depleted event in 2012, when only 16 people took part in the singles events, the Edinburgh Tournament had a modest resurgence this year.  Although the number of Association Croquet players was actually down on last year (26 against 29), they entered more events on average, and in particular fewer of them played only doubles.  There were 96 full-length games played, plus two 14-point tie-breakers, against last year's very low total of 83 games.  For the first time there was also a Golf Croquet competition, played mostly on Friday with the final on Saturday, and this attracted six additional entrants alongside six AC/GC players, who together played 31 GC games and all seemed to enjoy the occasion.

John Surgenor was also resurgent, winning both the Open and the handicap knockout and getting his handicap down from 1 to 0, close to his level in the 1990s when he played off -0.5.

It was good to have two first-time visitors from Fylde in Lancashire, Lee Hartley and Betty Bates.  Along with Fettes veteran Norman Hicks they made up the contingent from outside Scotland; Graham Brightwell had intended to enter but was prevented by injury.  There were also two Scottish players taking part in the singles here for the first time, having played only doubles last year: Bob Darling and Lyn Gilpin.

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  3. 14-Point Tournament 2013
  4. Secretary Trophy 2013