Don Reyland’s and the 2024 Harcourts Invitation Event

It has been a big week for croquet players in the top of the South Island with two big tournaments coming to a close. The first was the DON REYLAND’S to decide the best singles player in the Marlborough region who will travel to Dunedin to play in the nationals against the best from the other 14 regions throughout New Zealand. The other was the HARCOURTS INVITATIONAL DOUBLES EVENT held by the Blenheim Club.

The Don Reyland’s has the first round played internally at each club to pick their best player. Round two has all the clubs in your designated region playoff to decide who will travel from your region to the nationals which for this year is in Dunedin. The Brooklyn lawns saw Dave Grigg from the Blenheim club and Peter Burt from Brooklyn contest the finals over the next 3 hours in the best of three games. On a typical Marlborough summer day, hot with a very slight north wester Dave Grigg took an early lead which he did not relinquish. The next game saw a complete reversal with Peter Burt easily taking the second. Game three was very close with the winner Dave Grigg, decided on the last hoop.

The Harcourts Invitation Event had players from as far afield as the Westcoast come to experience Blenheim Clubs’ immaculately prepared lawns, a fantastic warm welcome,  exceptional good food and oh yes some good croquet thrown in as well. The 11 pairs were divided into two groups who played round robin followed by semifinals and finals. Also with plenty of breaks for food and catch-up with friends and players they had not seen in a while. Dave and Christine Grigg managed to just scrape through their semifinal match against Barry Masters and Rowena Booker 5-4 while Mike Guillemot and Glenda MacDonald made it a little more comfortably through to the final against Marg Foxton and Jan Cleland. Having started at 9 am and it was now 5 pm for the final with both sets of players starting to show a little fatigue after 8 hours of play in the hot Marlborough sun. After 50 minutes of tough exhausting play Dave and Christine Grigg managed to win 5-4 over Mike Guillemot and Glenda MacDonald. Our thanks go out to Harcourts for their valuable support to enable us to offer such an enjoyable competition.

Should anyone wish to come and see if they enjoy playing croquet, please contact Blenheim Croquet Club or Brooklyn club from their web sites.