The club’s elite players took to the lawns on Thursday for the annual Veteran’s Trophy tournament.
This year, eight competitors enjoyed a hotly contested tournament in ideal playing conditions. The lawns were looking lush after the recent rain.
Peter Hill 6, Roger Wood 0, Derry Bancroft 20, Nick Reed 12, Chris Croft 8, Patrick Linturn 11, Janet Bedford 5 and Peter Dobson 12 were all raring to go after the tournament was postponed in July due to the extreme heat warnings. Winner of the 2025 tournament, Eileen Holt, was unable to play due to a holiday commitment which clashed with the rearranged date.
Played under the newly introduced Advantage Handicap target score system, the tournament began with a block’s competition – two blocks of four.
Under the new system, zero-handicap Roger Wood found himself having to hit a target of twelve hoops in his first game, whilst Janet Bedford had a target of ten hoops to chase.
Nonetheless, both Roger and Janet both won their first games in the Black block and Red block respectively, by 9/12 – 2/7 for Roger and 10/10 – 2/7 for Janet. Nick Reed won his Red block game 9/9 – 6/7, while Chris Croft won his game 7/7 – 5/7.
In round two, the deadly accurate Janet won again, hitting her target 9/9 to her opponent’s 4/6. Patrick Linturn won his Red block game by just hitting his 8/8 target before his opponent Derry Bancroft could just get one more hoop to hit his 6/6 target.
In the Black block, Roger was thwarted by Chris Croft who hit his 6-hoop target within the block competition’s one-hour time limit before Roger could get near his 11-hoop objective. Meanwhile, Peter Hill grabbed two match points by winning his game 7/7 – 4/5.
By the third round of the blocks, Janet appeared to be unstoppable in the Red block. She hit her target of seven well within the hour, to her opponent’s 2/4 score. Patrick Linturn turned in a good performance when he clinched a 7/7-5/7 win against the on-form Nick Reed, who performed well in the Ryland earlier in the week.
The two Peter’s – Hill and Dobson both had wins in the black block. Peter Dobson enjoyed a fine win over Chris Croft 7/7 – 4/9, while Peter Hill beat Roger 4/4 – 2/7.
At the end of the blocks round, the winner of the Red block was Janet Bedford with 6 points. Chris Croft won the Black block with 4 points. Patrick Linturn was runner-up in the Red block with 4 points, while runner-up in the Black block was Peter Dobson, also on 4 points.
After lunch came the semi-finals for the Veteran’s Trophy and the Veteran’s ‘Plate’ ( a rather fine bottle of Bordeaux).
In the first of the Trophy semi’s, Janet Bedford beat Peter Dobson in a tense and very tight game on lawn one. Janet finally won 9/9, while Peter was close on her heels, just missing out with a score of 6/7.
Chris Croft triumphed in the other Trophy semi-final, pipping Patrick Linturn 8/8 – 3/6.
In the Veteran’s ‘Plate’ semi-finals, Nick Reed beat Roger Wood 5/5 – 7/12, while Peter Hill beat Derry Bancroft 7/7 – 1/4.
The Veteran’s Trophy final saw Chris facing Janet on lawn 2 in an untimed game. Chasing a target of 9 hoops to Chris’s 7, Janet, from the off, looked like she was taking no prisoners. Despite some accurate play from Chris, Janet romped to her target within an hour, winning 9/9 – 2/7.
Meanwhile on lawn 3, the Veteran’s ‘Plate’ was won by Nick Reed. Nick beat Peter Hill 5/5 – 3/7.
Well done Janet. A very worthy Veteran’s Trophy winner – on her first attempt as well.
The tournament was a joy to watch, with some excellent golf croquet being played by all the competitors.
Runner-up Chris Croft said later ‘Janet Bedford ran out a worth Veteran’s winner. She took every opportunity to strike in the final (and no one can say there weren’t plenty of them). All the matches I contested were played in the spirit of the game.’
Chris added ‘The organisation was exceptional, the company was great, the craic was good and the refreshments were first class.’
Many thanks to the Elite Eight for a lovely day. Thanks also to Jim Dryden for his help at the end of the day and to Hazel (Felton) for the wonderful cakes that complemented the glasses of Prosecco we imbibed at the end of the afternoon.
Paul Felton