Players and Officials

WCA 100th AC Open Singles Championship

Played at the Wellington Club from 27 - 30 December 2024

The Open Championship was first played in 1920 and has been held almost continuously since then (war years excepted) . The names on the Challenge Cup (the winner’s trophy) are quite a “who’s who” of New Zealand croquet, and we were delighted to have two former champions playing again this year: Jim Wardle (1976, 1978 & 1979) and Dennis Bulloch (2001). After the completion of Block play on the second day of the tournament (while Players, Officials and guests were enjoying a relaxed and very tasty BBQ), WCA President Matthew Spooner spoke (briefly) about its history and future. In recognition of the 100th holding of the Championship, a commemorative badge was presented to each of the Players, WCA Executive and Life Members, Referees and Management. And at the end of competition on the fourth day we were delighted to have Life Member Nancy McDonald present the Trophies to the winners.

This year’s tournament had 14 entries from Wellington, Hawkes Bay, Manawatu-Wanganui, Nelson, South Taranaki and Wairarapa. With the same number of players as in 2023, we used the same format that had worked well last year. On Days 1 and 2 players were divided into 2 Blocks and competed in a round robin, each match being 1 game. The first and second placed players in each Block moved forward to the knockout competition where all matches were best of 3 with a total time allowed of 9 hours . The remaining 10 players then competed in the Plate - this year a cross block of 6 games, where players played everyone in the Plate whom they had not already played. Results from the original Blocks were carried over.

As usual the hoops were tightly set - the referees commented on the number of balls that only just got through the hoop resulting in hampered shots - and the standard of refreshments excellent!

The weather delivered a little bit of everything in the way of sun, wind and rain, but was considerably better than forecast. In fact we were very lucky, although it could have been a bit warmer at times! With 7 rounds of section play, day 1 was a very long day with 4 rounds played. Management and helpers were pleased to walk out the gate before 8:00 pm.

Vincent Commarieu (Nelson) and Callum McKinnon (Kelburn) were undefeated in their respective Blocks with 6 wins each. The other 2 semi-finalists were Dennis Bulloch (Manawatu-Wanganui) with 4 wins and Graeme Fisher (Wellington) also with 4 wins.

The final between Vincent and Callum was a high quality match with both players showing their skills in building and sustaining breaks.
Final score : 26-23, 26-11 to Vincent Commarieu.

Dennis and Graeme played a single game for 3rd place - won by Graeme 26-19

Before the completion of the final round of the Plate, Stefan Horrer (Wairarapa) had an unassailable lead with 7 wins and 82 net hoops. By general agreement amongst the players the remaining games in the 6th round of the plate were not played.