Martin French won the Budleigh GC Open

[<<] [>>] by Tim Russell at Budleigh Salterton
6th August (GC - Tournaments)

Sixteen players gathered to play the Budleigh GC Open on what turned out to be a rare rain-free weekend this summer.

Block A proved to be very competitive with four players finishing on 5 wins. Top seed Tim Russell headed the block but after losing two tight games to fellow qualifiers Jon Carrington and Colin Britt. In the latter game Colin raced into a 4-0 lead before Tim came back to lead 6-4. Colin ran 11 well and was control of 12 with Tim concentrating on getting a good first ball to 13. That was achieved but the hoop shot was poor and Colin later thread his ball through Tim's two intended blockers to win 7-6. Defending champion Andy Loakes wasn't on his form of last year although he did win the Plate knockout on the Sunday with a tremendous Barnes Wallis at the deciding hoop. Relative newcomer Andy Dochniak joined Tim, Colin and Jon in the quarter finals but it would be remiss not to mention the bottom ranked player, Budleigh's Pat Coulter, who although he only won 2 out of 7 showed his fast improving credentials by not losing any game by a wider margin of 7-5. He will be a scratch player fairly soon.

Block B ran closer to seeding with Lionel Tibble (6/7), Tim Jolliff (5/7) and Martin French (5/7) all going through. Stephen Custance Baker took the last spot with 3 wins and a net hoop score of -2, deserving of his place as the only player in the block to take a game off Lionel Tibble.

In the quarter finals all matches went with seeding in straight games with Tim R beating Stephen 7-3, 7-2; Tim J beating Colin 7-2,7-5; Martin beating Jon in a tight battle 7-5, 7-6 and Lionel beating Andy D 7-3, 7-5. The semi-finals were tighter contests with Tim J beating the other Tim 4-7, 7-5, 7-5. Tim had a chance for a 4-2 lead in the second game but missed a relatively easy jump in front of 6 with his oppo's next ball to 7 in the jaws. Tim J took control of the third game up 5-1 but TR came back to run hoop 11 well down to the side of 12. Two good positional shots followed before Tim J managed to get a block on his other ball from the North boundary. A fine shot as his other ball could be cleared to the East boundary with an angle down to the golden hoop.

Martin French overcame Lionel in another very tight match with a good display of clearing and hoop running to win the match at the golden hoop in the third 7-6, 4-7, 7-6 with Lionel playing well but finding too many of his clearances weren't centre ball.

Having looked like there might be an early finish after the quarter finals, Budleigh's crowd of supporters were entertained to a lengthy battle between Tim and Martin. With a mix of fine and some poor shots, (one unnamed player took four shots at hoop 4 and missed them all), it was a closely contested battle. Martin won the first at the golden hoop, putting his first ball down to the North boundary and running the hoop from there. Tim came back to win the second game 7-4 and most of the audience would have put their houses on the final game being both long and likely to be decided at the golden hoop. It was eventually scored at close to 6.45 by Martin who put a better positional shot in two yards straight in front from near the halfway point on the East boundary. It was his first final since 2016 and it was good to see him back after shoulder problems kept him out of the game for several years.

Many thanks to Budleigh for hosting such a pleasant tournament and for reintroducing a food offering.