Family links feature in results

Club championship winners: Golf croquet club championship doubles winners for Barry Memorial Croquet Club are (from left) Dave and Chris Newton (open winners), and Per and Ina Elzen (second division winners). Pictures supplied

Husband and wife Dave and Chris Newton were crowned open doubles club champions after a hard day of golf croquet at Barry Memorial Club courts.

All pairs contesting the open had a loss so some games proved crucial in the final standings.

The Newtons' only loss was to Charles Ostler and Ross Thomson, but the Newtons reversed the result in the return match.

Ostler and Thomson were runners-up.

Jenny Barns-Graham and Christine McCullough were unlucky to lose 7-6 in both their matches against the Newtons.

In the B Division, husband and wife Per and Ina Elzen had an easier time, winning all their games.

However, they were pushed hard by Maurice Allan and David McEwen, who held them to 7-6 in both matches.

Geoff Harkess and Robyn Chaffey played well to upset the more experienced pair of Allan and McEwen 7-5, but in the return match Allan and McEwen turned the tables, winning 7-5.

Getting stronger each game, George and Glenis Ebbett were firing on all cylinders by the last round and defeated Harkess and Chaffey 7-3.

Allan and McEwen were runners-up in the division.

The next big local challenge will be the club singles championships in March.

Several players travelled to play in a tournament in Mount Maunganui.

In the level singles, Rob Hayes, on a handicap of 2, started play in the first division with a win. He faltered in the next two games but finished the first day with a four-win, three-loss record.

One of his wins was against Sue Roberts, who was set back when on the 10th hoop Hayes succeeded with a 3.5-metre jump from an acute angle over her ball sitting in the hoop. He went on to win the game 7-6.

On the second day, Hayes could hardly put a foot wrong. He lost only one game and won the rest. He beat the top seed, who was on a -1 handicap, and another player on scratch.

Hayes finished the tournament in fourth place and in doing so lowered his own handicap to 1.

In the second division, Dave Newton started the first day with four wins and looked comfortable. Then he lost 7-4 to his wife Chris, and also lost his next game.

However, the following day he came back with a vengeance. Playing good, deliberate strokes, he lost only one further game and ended the tournament as runner-up. He comfortably defeated eventual winner Lennart Eldholt, from Katikati, 7-3 in his last game.

Chris Newton finished a creditable fourth in of a field of 12.

In the handicap doubles, Hayes and John Wilson and the Newton pair, playing in the top division, struck some low-handicapped pairs and finished in the middle of the field.

Playing in the second division, father and son Ross and Rick Thomson played well, losing only two games.

Again they showed that being the bottom seeds means nothing, beating several pairs with lower handicaps, and finished runners-up. One of the crucial games was a 7-6 loss that, had they won it, would have won them the division.

Rick was rewarded for his efforts with a lower handicap.

• In March, the Barry Memorial Croquet Club will hold mercantile challenge nights on Tuesdays for non-croquet players. Teams of four to eight players are welcome to enter. Play will start at 5.30pm. Inquiries and expressions of interest should be sent to .