A glimpse of Friday at the Opens

[<<] [>>] by Dave Kibble at Cheltenham
12th July 2003 (AC - Championships)

The quarter finals were played on 1, 2, 4 & 5, all being tricky, 1 (Fulford) being the easiest and a real toss-up between 4 (Avery) and 5 (Bamford) for most difficult.

Chris and Rob never looked like losers in their matches but Mark appeared to struggle against Jonathan from a distance though the result tells a different story.

As an illustration of the conditions: John Gibbons put up a good fight against Reg on a very difficult, fast and slightly patchy, lawn 5. A big part of the challenge being that balls often need to travel over lush green to stop on glass-like brown. In the second game, Reg had completed all the peels of a triple but failed 2-back; John went round and pegged Reg out in an immaculate turn. After some tussling, with John's peg ball on the E boundary near 2 and his hoop-1 ball on the W boundary near corner IV, Reg took position at 2-back. John shot at partner with the hoop 1 ball and hit. The take-off sent out a good pioneer to 2 but striker's ball rolled on and on and on to about 4-yards past 2-back to a wired position; what a dilemma, wired by the hoop you are for, with a certain roquet at the other side and a pioneer at the next hoop; flat lawn, straight in front, just hit a 40 yard roquet on the nose. However, John chose the discrete approach and went away to corner 2. Reg ran the hoop and considered the shot but took (perfect) position at 3-back instead, John again took the brave shot, hit and embarked on a 3-ball break to win the game. He played confidently, despite the extreme conditions and reached the peg-out, a satisfying thud confirmed that the peg-out had been achieved but the longish shot with striker's ball missed. Reg hit and had a difficult 2-ball pick-up for 3-back but ran 4-back hard to get some kind of rush to Penult - game over on a regular lawn, but position at Penult proved tricky and Reg clanged off the hoop; John, being near the peg, pegged out.

Not witnessed by me, but I understand that Stephen Mulliner may have earned a place in the record book by requesting a (doubles) game to be pegged down after time had been called: with only two balls left on the lawn, he had to hit and make two hoops to draw level against Gibbons & Wainman. He claimed he could not even see the ball he needed to hit since the sun had already set. Being the evening of the tournament barbecue there were many people there watching and of course wanted torches to be used! The game was pegged down and resumed early next morning with Stephen disappointing the crowd by missing the long shot.

Of the many acts of sun and frustrating lawn induced madness, Dave Foulser's probably stands out, perhaps only because the act was performed on lawn 8 in front of the clubhouse with most of the players idly spectating and having a drink. He did an NSL, putting Tony Mrozinski's ball into the jaws of 3-back, sadly without realising that the ball's clip was on 3-back. Tony ran the hoop and hit the 7-yard shot. Dave went on to win the game though.