Morning Coffee: Cumming Wins NC Open

The news is a little light this week, which may serve as a little calm before the storm. All kinds of tournament action is on deck in the United States for April and May and the WCF Association World Championship will kick off in Adelaide in just a few weeks. In the meantime, enjoy this week's very brief edition ...

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Morning Coffee: World Championship Blocks Set

Last week's article on Zac Ashley drew a clarification on a claim made by the Canterbury Star:

Just for the record Zac is not the youngest winner of the NZ Handicap Singles event.  In 1960 Tony Stephens at age 16 won not only the Hurlingham Cup (NZ Handicap Singles) but achieved far greater glory by winning the NZ Open Championship Singles, the NZ Men's Championship Singles, and with Ashley Heenan the NZ Doubles Championship.  

Cheers
John Prince

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Morning Coffee: Back in the Saddle

After a little "magazine" vacation, Morning Coffee is getting back into the action. Time to catch up on a full slate of croquet headlines--

WCF World Championship Qualifier Participants
The following players will participate in the World Championship Qualifier April 24-26 in Adelaide …

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Morning Coffee: Is Tennis is Better Than Croquet?

There are a number of interesting headlines that lead off the week, but the story that caught my eye was the piece on the Murwillumbah Croquet Club celebrating an 85th anniversary. Late in the story there is a rundown on the history of croquet and the mention of tennis rising to essentially end the reign of croquet as a popular sport in England in the late 1800's. Most malletheads are familiar with the story, but the shelving of croquet for tennis got me to thinking. Is tennis really that much more fun to watch than golf croquet? I wonder if golf

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Morning Coffee: Florida Golf Croquet Exhibition Hits the Mark

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This past week featured a golf croquet battle royale in West Palm Beach. The IPC Golf Croquet Invitational brought in eight of the top players in the world for an $8,000 purse. World champion Mark McInerney snagged the title with a 7-5, 7-4 win over Khaled Younis in the final. The high point of the week's activities seemed to be a single exhibition game between Younis and McInerney staged at the National Croquet Center earlier in the event. Read more below ...

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Morning Coffee: St. John's vs Navy Scales Back

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Ah, President's Day. This is a wonderful chance for me to sleep in until 7:30 and play modern-day internet journalist. The leisurely morning with coffee, snagging of stories then pausing for a spoon feeding of rice cereal and peaches for my six-month old breakfast critic and a return to the old trusty laptop. No pressure of a press deadline, just knowing croquet fans across America will likely be checking their e-mail by noon. While across the pond, it's best to have the newsletter ready for some evening e-mail readers. Contrast that to the usual 5:00-7:00 a.m. window followed by operation school and daycare dropoff and this is the life. Enjoy it today my friend, because it's back to the grind next week.

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Morning Coffee: Rich Rocks AC Nationals

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It was another big news week in the world of croquet and it was capped off with Rich Lamm taking down Brian Cumming 3-2 to claim the the USCA Association National Championship and the Stark Cup. Reports from Rancho Mirage indicated the best of five final lasted over seven hours. Overall, American fans of international play must be stoked to see that things are getting real competitive at the top of the line-up. Enjoy the line-up ...

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