Fran Wall and Billy Cooke continued the Broadwas charge in the Golf Croquet National Tournaments when they both won their competitions at the weekend, building on Jon Carrington’s recent ‘A’ Level win at Bury.
On Sunday, Fran won the Bury GC ‘B’ Level (3+) Tournament – his first individual tournament of the 2024 season – when he beat Bury’s Richard Leach in the final, 10-4.
On Saturday, in only his third attempt at the competition, Billy Cooke won the GC ‘C’ Level (7+) Tournament, by beating 8-handicap Kim Dalland from Edinburgh, 7-3 in the final.
In his ‘B’ Level blocks round, Fran beat Frank Sharps of Crake V 7-5 and Sarah Clements of Chester, 7-4. But Fran didn’t have it all his own way, losing 7-4 to Sheffield’s Richard Hume 4-7 and just losing out to Marcia Henderson of Auckland, 6-7 at the 13th hoop.
Fran then bounced back to beat Robert Strover of Bishop Monkton, 7-4, which took him to the semi’s.
In the semi-final, Fran had another hard battle when he met Sandra Comes of Crake V. In another 13th hoop epic, Fran finally won, 7-6.
Following on from his recent near-miss in the final at Watford, Billy took the honours when he won all of his games at Chester.
In his blocks games, Billy beat 10-handicap Catriona Peterson from Nottingham 7-1 and also beat 9-handicap Sue Kendall from Llanfairfechan, 7-1.
Billy had a more challenging third game when he beat 11-handicap Liz Griffiths from Llanfairfechan 7-6.
In his semi-final, Billy beat Rod Bowdon (8-handicap) of Llanfairfechan 7-4, before going on to beat Kim Dalland in the final.
Billy, who many will know only took up Golf Croquet in 2023, paid tribute to his opponent, who is not attached to a club.
Of Kim, Billy said “She was a really tough player and although the score doesn’t reflect it, I really needed to play my best game in order to get over the line.”
Only on Friday at the roll-up, Fran was lamenting during one doubles game: “I keep missing.”
What a time to get your aim back!
Many congratulations to Billy and Fran.
Paul Felton