With a light breeze fluttering the flags that graced the corners of the courts, ten players faced off in the first American Six-Wicket croquet tournament of the season at the Grace & Truth SportsPark on Saturday, July 9. In a waterford-style doubles tournament, each person played four games but with a different partner each time in 45-minute games that sometimes came down to real nail-biters in last turns.
This type of game is vastly different than the game of Golf Croquet in that the players are often trying to control the action of two balls and send balls ahead to their next wicket (called a pioneer) so that they can continue to “run a break” and score more than wicket in their turn. It is always great fun when one succeeds in that strategy, but skill and strategy must combine in this game that is akin to a game of chess and billiards with balls on the closely cropped greens. It is a game for those that enjoy a challenge and have good hand-eye coordination.
After four games each, players seeded to a ladder. First and fourth seeds played second and third seeds in the final. Fifth and sixth seeds are automatically the third place winners. Tournament winners were: First Place – Rich Laging of Hilton and Sheila McLeod of Greece; Second Place – Joanne O’Keefe of Hilton and Sue Sherer of Greece; Third Place – Lee Kirk of Penfield and Peter Bowers of Hilton.
The Rochester Croquet Club is open to the public. For more information visit RocCroquet.org or email RocCroquet@gmail.com.
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