Golf Doubles semi-final completed…at last

Derek Heath and Lister Fielding won a marathon semi-final in the Golf Doubles today.

In an earlier session they ran of of time after 2.5 hours with one game each, so returned to play the last game.

However, they ran out of the available time of 1 hour again with the score 6-6! As per the normal procedure for completing a match after time has been called two extra shots were played by each player (8 in total), but the game was still level.

After this the game should have been completed by playing until one side scores the next hoop (the only exception to this is when a tournament manager can accept a draw/tie result, but obviously this is not possible in a knock-out event such as this). Unfortunately one of the players had to leave, so they pulled up stumps!!

Luckily I arrived before they all left the club and decided that (putting my manager/referee’s hat on), because a winner was needed to play in the final and all the balls and hoops had been taken off, the winner would be the side to hit the peg first from a 7 yard distance.

After winning the toss Mike Sander narrowly missed, but Lister made no mistake with his first attempt, so winning the match.

This is obviously not a normal procedure for completing a match: what the players should have done was to continue playing without the missing person(s) until the final hoop is scored. The balls of the missing players can’t be played during this period, but will remain on the lawn and could even score the hoop… If all players can’t continue then a coin toss may be the only acceptable resolution.

Jon Diamond