2023 USCA Golf Croquet National Championship Hartfield, Virginia | September 18-24, 2023
70 PLAYERS VIE FOR GC NATIONAL TITLE in VIrginia By DAMON BIDENCOPE
Arrival on Sunday, September 17, at the Chesapeake Bay Croquet Club (CBCC) was mixed with heightened anticipation and some exhaustion from tournament draw preparation. The first impression of being greeted by the sight of the 16 newly added courts laid out in a massive square of green closely mown grass was quite something. With 24 full-size regulation courts, CBCC is the largest croquet facility in the world. More than 70 USCA members participated in this event. Following recent event formatting trends, the doubles tournament section was held Monday through Wednesday, and the singles portion was scheduled for Thursday through Sunday. This allowed players wishing to only play in either just doubles or singles to do so. First Flight games were played with a time limit while championship games were played to a result. The First Flight doubles teams were seeded into four blocks of six teams. The top 12 teams progressed to a draw seeded on block performance into the First Flight Doubles Knockout.
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The block game successes saw Jack Rush/Ryan Eberlein, Rob Turner/Dan Horton, Sandy Janitz/Walt Janitz and George Pendleton/Christine Smith emerge as top block finishers and earned a first-round bye in the knockout. The other qualifying teams for the knockout included Marc Stearns/MaryCarol Stearns, Geri O’Neill/Kathleen Skoog, Bill Simmons/Steve Jackson, Ellie Griffith/Lynda Bjorklund, Alex Galasso/Mary Galasso, Robert Smothers/Shep Slater, Linda Maloney/Pam Groh and Karen and Chris Weihs. After the four rounds of knockout play, the final pair standing was Bill Simmons and Steve Jackson beating Rob Turner and Dan Horton 7-6 in a closely fought final doubles game. The other First Flight doubles teams all progressed into the First Flight Doubles Plate. The First Flight doubles plate was won by Neill Trimble and Bruce Hindin, with Kim Allen and Michael Allen in the runner up position. Championship Doubles was divided into two six team blocks with the top four teams progressing to a best-of-three knockout seeded on block performance. The semifinals had the remaining teams of Matthew Essick/Sherif Abdelwahab, Jim Jamison/Daren Guffy, Ahab Abdelwahab/Tamer Hatata, Tom Balding/Blake Fields. Following successes by Essick/S. Abdelwahab and Balding/ Fields, the final matchup was set. The first game went 7-5 to Essick and Abdelwahab and many would have thought the result would be quickly decided with a second. Unfortunately for the top seeded pair, Balding and Fields were not cooperative, and a slow fuse was lit with the duo prevailing in the second game 7-4. The third game saw a croquet player’s nightmare with Balding and
