Golf Croquet
Golf Croquet
Jez Reeves, Liam Reeves
Golf Croquet continues as a minority sport at Havelock North High School but its devotees are as committed
and successful as ever. It is available through the Te Mata Croquet Club, where weekly sessions are offered
to intermediate and high school-age students to learn and improve at the game. All are welcome. Our most
successful students have gone on to join clubs, compete and win at a national level.
Golf croquet is a game of skill and tactics. It is deceptively simple, taking only a few minutes to learn but, like
chess, requires the ability to think several moves ahead, and like snooker, the ability to judge distances and
angles. It can be played as doubles or singles, and boys and girls, juniors and seniors, all play against each
other as equals. The winner is the first to take seven hoops.
This year’s National Secondary Schools Golf Croquet Tournament was held in March at the Rose Gardens Croquet Club in Palmerston North. There were 24 doubles teams entered from across the country. Havelock North
High School was represented by two teams, experienced pair Liam and Jez Reeves (Year 13 and Year 10) and
newcomers Connor Parkhill and Finlay Keip (Year 9).
The NSS tournament is the only golf croquet competition specifically for school-aged players and attracts the
top young players in the country. The field included several national champions and playing conditions were
exceptionally dry and fast, making for a tough and very exciting two-day competition. After a round robin of
eleven matches, HNHS B team had made the most of their first experience of top lev el competition, while HNHS
A team qualified second in their section and went on to secure third place overall after an epic, 13-hoop thriller
against Inglewood High School.
Liam and Jez have both been selected for the NZ Under 21 Squad and Liam will be representing New Zealand
in the Under 21 World Championships to be held in Christchurch in February 2015.