Wow, what a transformation! Possibly the most improved club I've ever revisited. Firstly, the clubhouse has had some walls knocked down and is now open plan, light and airy. Next, the lawns......much flatter, much faster, much better grass quality. The hoops were also set very accurately. To top it all off, the club had wi-fi available for all players. What a great place to play.......what could possibly spoil it?

Well, running hoop 10 to go 6-4 up in the first in your crucial match against the block number 2 and then being faulted with the worst refereeing decision of your 30 year career probably goes some way to spoiling the day. I had a short angled hoop a few mm away from the near wire. The ref stood 4 yards behind the hoop on my line of aim and faulted me for a crush on the far wire. Given my mallet hadn't come within 5 inches of the far wire during the stroke, it was truly astonishing that he had "seen" my mallet, the ball and the far wire all in contact at the same time. So, 6-4 rapidly turned into 5-7. Stephen Mulliner was watching and also realised what a shocking decision it was but said I couldn't do anything about it.
In the second game, the same ref gave me an incorrect ruling on a matter of law, so fortunately I was able to appeal against that decision and get it overturned. Fortunately, I found a couple of extra gears and won the match.
John Christie summed the situation up pretty accurately... "Chris, you've been playing long enough to know that you should never call a local referee". He was right - my mistake.

Evan Newell took over 4 hours to lose to Darren McLoughlin. Evan is very unhappy with the Atkins hoops which he says are ruining the game. He says that you can't shoot at hoop 2 twice any more when you've just run hoop one. He thinks that making it more difficult to run 45 degree hoops is also bad and that needing to take good position isn't a good thing. Ho hum, I guess when you try to make conditions challenging for the top 80 players in the world, it does make things too difficult for those players outside the top 100.

Mulliner v Hisham Abu Osbaa was a close match. The lawns had some genuinely fast patches and it made for some fascinating tactical battles as the day wore on. Stephen lost a close first but the nest two were easier wins for the number 8 seed. Jared Keeman continued his winning ways with an important match win against William Louw and Marwan is also looking good for the knockout having beaten John van der Touw in 3.

With a round and a bit left, it looks like the favourites to win their blocks will be Erian, A. Nasr, Bamford, C. Clarke (narrowly), Mahdi, Dixon, Drew and Mulliner. How many of those have you got in your fantasy team?

I'm at the Mount for the rest of my event, so the end to 2.5 hours of driving to satellite venues is over.

I heard yesterday that Brian Boutel had been taken to hospital with another heart attack. Brian is one of NZ's best officials, having managed the GC Nationals, been ROT of the AC Nationals and also the ROT for this event. I'm sure we all wish him a full and speedy recovery.

Chris

(editors note: Brian didn't have a heart attack, and has been released from hospital, and might be back at the Mount today.)