Scottish Open 2018
23-24 June 2018, Meadows
The Scottish Open was played in glorious sunshine on the fast and occasionally challenging lawns at Meadows. The single game first round produced the first upset with Bob Darling beating seventh seed John Surgenor. The second surprise came in the best-of-three quarter final when Alastair Burn-Murdoch took the first game off reigning world champion Paddy Chapman from New Zealand. Paddy had laid up for a sextuple with a cross wire around hoop one but Alastair hit the tea lady and finished with a 26-6 score. Paddy then completed two triples to win the match. The semi-finals saw Paddy complete another couple of triples to beat Richard H Smith and James Hopgood beat Mark Ormerod.
The first game of the final was extremely close and could easily have gone either way. James was looking comfortable until accidentally wiring himself from his pioneer at penult. Paddy then looked like winning until falling short on a backward take-off at 3-back and having to retreat to the west boundary. James hit in, but then ended up missing a two or three yarder after running penult. Paddy looked set to finish but then faulted himself while doing a half-jump rover peel. James then missed the shot from the south boundary ending up just south west of hoop three. Paddy cleverly set up a wired rush to rover and after James had to declare a fault on his best effort to play the shot, Paddy won the game and followed this up with a +26tp in the second to win the Scottish Championship.
Meanwhile, the plate was a close-run thing with Mark Ormerod, Alastair-Burn Murdoch and Chris Martin all in contention. The last game of the weekend saw Chris beat Alastair 26-15 to take the trophy and a handicap reduction to ½. Lorna Dewar also had a good weekend with two wins and a handicap reduction to 8.
Many spectators turned up to watch in the sunshine and the players were treated to a delicious afternoon tea provided by Tom and Lorna Dewar.
Jane Morrison
RESULTS
Winner: Paddy Chapman
Runner-up: James Hopgood
Plate winner: Chris Martin
Peeling prize: Paddy Chapman
Scottish Open (Moffat Mallet)
| Paddy Chapman | Paddy Chapman +18 |
Paddy Chapman -20 +26tp +17tp |
Paddy Chapman +26tp +18tp |
Paddy Chapman +2 +26tp |
| Alistair Malcom | ||||
| Lorna Dewar | Alastair Burn-Murdoch +20 |
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| Alastair Burn-Murdoch | ||||
| Alan Wilson | Richard H Smith +24 |
Richard H Smith -26 +3 +16 |
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| Richard H Smith | ||||
| Jane Morrison | ||||
| Mark Ormerod | Mark Ormerod +11T (23-12) +26tp |
James Hopgood +15 +25tp |
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| Chris Martin | ||||
| John Surgenor | Bob Darling +17 |
James Hopgood +24tp +26tp |
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| Bob Darling | ||||
| David Houston | James Hopgood +21tp |
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| James Hopgood |
Swiss (Edinburgh Plate)
| KO Wins | Plate Wins | Total | Beat | |
| Chris Martin | 0 | 5 | 5 | David Houston +20, Bob Darling +15, John Surgenor +2T (23-21), Richard H Smith +8T (19-11), Alastair Burn-Murdoch +11 |
| Mark Ormerod | 2 | 2 | 4 | Alastair Burn-Murdoch +20tp, Alan Wilson +1T (14-13) |
| Jane Morrison | 1 | 2 | 3 | Alan Wilson +20, John Surgenor +5 |
| Alastair Burn-Murdoch | 2 | 1 | 3 | Alan Wilson +18 |
| Richard H Smith | 3 | 0 | 3 | |
| Lorna Dewar | 0 | 2 | 2 | Alistair Malcolm +1T (18-17), Bob Darling +1T (14-13) |
| Alan Wilson | 0 | 2 | 2 | Alistair Malcolm +14, John Surgenor +14 |
| David Houston | 0 | 1 | 1 | Bob Darling +2T (12-10) |
| Alistair Malcolm | 0 | 1 | 1 | David Houston +6T (12-6) |
| John Surgenor | 0 | 1 | 1 | Lorna Dewar +10T (22-12) |
| Bob Darling | 1 | 0 | 1 |
The results are also on Croquet Scores.
