Australian National Championships - Croquet

Each year the Golf Croquet National Championships are played.

Six states compete and take turns to host the event. This year WA clubs hosted the various competitions held over a twelve day period.

Firstly the Gold Medal – a three day event, where each state champion (Bronze Medallist) competes for the Gold and Silver. This year, Chris McWhirter, WA and Australian Team Capotain, won the event for the fourth time.

The Men’s and Women’s Championship Singles were played next.

Geraldton’s Paul Christmass entered his first Australian event and showed that Geraldton is on the radar and does have some good local players. Paul surprised his opposition and spectators by winning many games to end up being 22nd out of 44 players….not bad for only starting to play the game about 16 months ago.

Paul Christmass

The final event was a teams’ event where the six states competed for the Interstate Shield.

This year WA came the closest ever to Victoria, only needing one more winning game against Victoria to be the outright champions….sadly it was not to be this year…but we are heading on the right direction.

Local player Kay Chynoweth was a strong contributor to the team’s result by winning 11 of the14 games she played.

Kay Chynoweth

It is very pleasing to add that, over the last ten months five state team players have visited Geraldton to play in tournaments held at the Geraldton Croquet Club. This has provided encouragement and strong competitive play for our members and has been very much appreciated.

WA Team 2016