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2024 CROQUET NEWS VOLUME 2: Summer Issue
By Paul Bennett
The 2024 USCA GC Nationals was hosted by the Mission Hills Croquet Club, February 11-18. International players from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Mexico flew into the Palm Springs, Calif., airport, along with players from a variety of states. The field was jam-packed with the strongest set of players the club has seen playing golf croquet (GC).
This version of croquet has evolved over the past 25 years to include the development of numerous clubs, talented players, coaches and, in fact, the creation of the World Croquet Federation (WCF) by Tony Hall, an avid golf croquet player at the time.
Bob Riddell, one of Mission Hill Croquet Club’s (MHCC) most loved club members, had his first experience with croquet while playing in the novice/ first flight in the 1999 GC Nationals. Riddell hosted an annual golf croquet club tournament yearly in Palm Springs at Mission Hills MHCC. The majority of MHCC club members enjoy the game of GC on a weekly basis as is true for many clubs around America.
The 2024 GC Nationals included 48 players in doubles and 46 players in singles. The 24 teams competed in doubles play the first three days of the event. Each block of eight had seven games of doubles followed by single-elimination knockout ladder play held Tuesday afternoon and all day Wednesday. In Championship Flight, half the teams advanced and the other half played in a plate event. In First Flight, all the teams advanced to a Plate and Draw elimination format with early teams dropping into a Plate event.
In Championship Doubles, Matthew Essick and Ben Rothman lost to David and Kyle Maloof in the finals. Kyle won his first GC Championship Doubles with his father David back in 2022 while playing in the Highlands of North Carolina. Kyle teaches croquet and tennis.
In First Flight Doubles, Shep Slater and Robert Smothers dominated the Draw and Process by winning the Draw against Barbara Wills and Susie Wall, and winning the Process against Greg Fisher and Donna Dixon. As a consequence, Dixon and Fisher played and won a game against Wills and Susie Wall for Second Place Doubles.
The winners in the First Flight Plate event were John Shanholt and Gail Kern, from the Mountain Mallets croquet club of Scottsdale, Ariz., who defeated Sarah Persons and Bill Simmons. In Championship Doubles Plate, Brian Cumming and Paul Bennett defeated Billie Ray and Highland Falls pro Darin Guffey.
The trophies for doubles were handed out at the mid-week Toast and Tally dinner. Thursday and Friday were seven rounds of singles block play for Championship and First Flight. Players advanced from block play into doubles by their number of victories, net points, gross points and finally head-to-head results. But, championship singles was resolved with a playoff if two or more players were tied with the same number of wins to advance into the main playoff. One resolution round between Brian Cumming and Kyle Maloof was needed in Block A. Maloof won that game 7-3 forcing Cumming to the Singles Plate.
Several notable block results are available on the Croquet Scores website at www.croquetscores.com/2024/gc/usca-nationals/. Greg Fisher, one of Mission Hills’ newest members, went undefeated in block E. In Blocks A-D, Matthew Essick, David Maloof, Ben Rothman and Sherif Abdelwahab all went undefeated in block play.
Championship Singles progressed into a best-of-three knockout ladder starting on Saturday and ending Sunday afternoon. In the first round, Kent Lovvorn, Brian Lozano, Mohammad Kamal, Kyle Maloof, Paul Bennett, Jeff Soo and Henry Smith got knocked out in two games while Edmund Fordyce got out after
the third game. Six of these players played in the Bowl championship and Brian Lozano won it against Fordyce in the final game.
This left the quarterfinals with an all-American field. Blake Fields and Tom Balding succumbed in their third games to Matthew Essick and David Maloof, respectively, while Sherif Abdelwahab and Stephen Morgan fell to Tamer Hatata and Ben Rothman in two games, respectively.
In the semifinals, Tamer Hatata lost to Matthew Essick in three games and David Maloof lost in two against Ben Rothman. Essick, the reigning WCF champ, and Rothman, a former WCF champion, met in the finals!
The finals went to the third game with Essick winning the first and final game. This is Essick’s second National GC Singles title.
Brian Lozano, currently playing for Mexico and coaching croquet, won the Championship Bowl 7-2 against Fordyce, from New Zealand. Joshua Freeth, playing for New Zealand and coaching croquet, won the Championship Plate over Mike Hatcher 7-5.
In First Flight, all 15 players advanced to the Draw and Process ladder playoff. Robert Smothers defeated Shep Slater 7-6 in the Draw and Stephen Jackson defeated John Shanholt 7-2 in the Process setting up a finals game where Jackson beat Smothers 7-3. In the First Flight plate, Betty Teoman defeated Sarah Persons 7-3.
And before closing, I would like to thank all the founders of this sport, those who helped establish the GC Nationals, those that played in those Nationals and everyone that promotes the game daily.
Thanks to Nick Gray, who managed the tournament, collecting team members together for their various functions and supporting me during the event. Thanks to all the members who helped set up the lawns: Ted, Stanley, John, Dick and Jean, Justin, Joshua, Nick, Bill, Chris, Jose and those that cut the lawns as the dawn of sun arose. Thanks to all the hosts that put players up for the week. Thanks to Donna for lending us a set of Dawson balls and beverage coolers. Thanks to Johnny Mitchell, Ursula Peck and Jeff Soo for handling entries, numerous emails, processing and collecting entry fees, and handling the allocation process. Thanks again to Jeff Soo and all the other referees for their professional service. And a special thanks to Jeff for teaching a great director class.
Get your district representative to work with your regional director to schedule your next regional; this will allow those players to have a better chance of playing in the Nationals.
As to the future of GC? Ben Rothman, Matthew Essick, Blake Fields and Joshua Freeth held a clinic on Sunday prior to the tournament highlighting three new versions of Golf Croquet by Howard Sosin. It was well attended by club members and positive comments received by the attendees. Congratulations to all the winners and finalists, and thank you all for playing!
