Pete Miles triumphs in Bath Short Lawns Tournament

The final internal tournament of the croquet season at Bath was the Short Lawns, held on Sunday 3rd October. A dozen people entered, which made it easy to run on three lawns, kindly set out as half-lawns by Paul Francis and Tony Curson, and the glorious sunshine in the morning was a welcome relief after the recent heavy rain.

Players were ranked by short-croquet handicap and then allocated to one of three blocks, which proved remarkably reliable in terms of actual results at the end of the day. Pete Miles emerged as the leading player after the block stage, with three 14pt wins, and went on to beat Roger Hayes 8:4 in their surprisingly low-scoring final.

Paul Francis was third block winner but graciously stepped aside in favour of highest-scoring overall runner-up Richard Jelly, who beat Margaret Murray 11:6 in the Plate final.