Simon Mew won the ARK Tournament

[<<] [>>] by Martin Burger at Surbiton Croquet club
11 Oct 2015 (AC - Handicap)

The ARK tournament was played in fine weather with the courts playing moderately fast even with the typical October dew ( which with the 9am start , lasted some time) . The dew also showed the flatness of the courts .

After the first day four players were unbeaten : Elizabeth Farrow , Collin Southern , and Simon Mew with 3 wins , and John Crowe with 2 ( with an odd number he had had the late start) - all in the handicap range 3.5 to 5 . As their games had not been over quickly and people usually do not want to rush lunch . it seemed best to play an effective knockout - both games going to the three-hour time limit .

The final was over relatively quickly , Simon beating Collin by 19 . Simon's other wins had been +2(T) , +3 , +14 , +4(T) . Three people finished on 4/5 , their only losses being to Simon who , incidentally had only entered the day . These three were Collin , Elizabeth , and Joe Prinold, who continued his remarkable progress this season - probably the next Surbiton player to come through to A-class.

There were four triple peels , two each to Chris Farthing and Omied Hallam , the latter's against the former being most remarkable as the rover peel was done after rover and bombarded back through rover onto the peg by an opponent's ball . Omied still had a bisque standing as insurance if it hadn't worked, as he commented. The format was sufficiently flexible to enable him to play seven games.

Final Placings:

1 Simon Mew (5) 5/5
2 Collin Southern (4.5) 4/5
2 Elizabeth Farrow (3.5) 4/5