Karen and Larry Bullard know how to roll out the carpet for croquet players.
Having recently installed an artificial lawn in their Scottsdale backyard (Oct 3rd), they decided to invite croquet players from Pasadena, Sonoma, San Diego and Arizona to play in a two-day Golf Croquet tournament.
Karen did a great job with the organization of the event and saw that all of our needs were well met.
Karen and Larry assigned Rick Zazueta as the tournament director and he setup the schedule and formalized the local playing rules that were required to take relief near the boundaries.

Single banking of games was the rule of the day, and the first match was against Paul Bennett and Giancarlo from Los Angeles.
Paul got the better of Giancarlo after clearing 3 and 4 in the same stroke, as well as getting in some other lucky shots.

An early upset was established in the second game between Jacques Fournier and Karen Bullard. Karen skillfully pulled off the upset with steady play and great strategic moves. It is our hope to see Karen playing on the US team soon.

The third match was between Rick and Larry and it was filled with drama but little suspense. Larry took the first 4 wickets from Rick. After the game, marguerites were enjoyed and tensions were eased. (Tequila bottle was nearly empty by end of day.)

Play continued well into the early darkness (days are shorter this time of year) with Jacques playing Giancarlo, establishing an early lead 4-1 and suspending play at 4-3.

Paul took over as TD in the morning after Rick and Giancarlo decided to withdraw from the tournament.

Larry and Jacques played first and Jacques won 7-1. Next Jacques played Paul and then after lunch Larry and Karen played the last game of the block. Karen won that game in good steady style, each having put their opponent through at least one hoop while trying to clear it away.

Jacques did not want to advance to a 4 way ladder and the weather was becoming blustery, windy and cold; so we shortened the ladder playoff to a single finals game between Paul and Karen.

The finals match was back and forth in the beginning and was tied going onto hoop 5, then Paul went up 6-2, Karen took the next hoop and Paul finished 7-3.

Once again THANKS to Karen and Larry for hosting the event, inviting us to come play and keeping us well fed and entertained. Plan on joining us for the next event and stay safe until then.