Third Time is a Charm

WRITTEN by Rich Curtis, PHOTOS by DONNA DIXON

The 2022 American Six Wicket National Championship was held at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, Calif., December 4-10. Shane Hettler, who finished second last year in the tournament and third in 2019 (the tournament was not held in 2020 because of COVID-19), won the Championship Flight Singles for his first national title.

Championship Flight singles consisted of three blocks of eight players with the top 16 finishers moving on to a face-off, double elimination ladder, i.e., the winners of each side of the ladder playing in a best-of-three final match. The players included five former American Six Wicket national singles champions with a total of eight titles between them: Danny Huneycutt (3); Brian Cumming (2); Doug Grimsley (1); Randy Cardo (1) and Sherif Abdelwahab (1).

Block play had a few surprises with the one notable exception being that Huneycutt did not play up to his normal dominant form and failed to advance to the ladder. Abdelwahab, Stuart Lawrence and Cumming were all undefeated in their respective blocks and grabbed the top three seeds in the ladder followed by Paul Bennett, Hettler and Grimsley.

On one side of the draw, Peter Bach upset Abdelwahab but lost to Cardo. Cardo then met Hettler in the finals of the winner’s bracket. After Hettler ran his first ball around to the peg, Cardo ran a break through rover and pegged out Hettler’s ball. Hettler could not overcome the substantial disadvantage of only having one ball and Cardo played the rover game to perfection for an easy 22-16 victory. This was the first of three games involving a player pegging out an opponent’s ball and, in each case, not surprisingly, the strategy proved to be a winning one. Cardo then played Abdelwahab, who had made his way through the loser’s bracket to play Cardo for a spot in the finals. Since Abdelwahab already had a loss, he had to win twice to advance while Cardo only needed one win. In a close match, Cardo prevailed 18-17.

Doug Grimsley, who had won the U.S. Open the previous week at Mission Hills and was playing strongly, dispatched Jodie Rugart, Cumming and Lawrence to take the winner’s bracket and the other side of the draw. That set up a match between Grimsley and Hettler, who had beaten Cumming 26-14 by pegging one of Cumming’s balls out, thereby doing to Cumming what Cardo had done to him in the previous game. Hettler needed to win two straight from Grimsley to advance to the finals and he did just that with a masterful display of shot-making ability by identical scores of 26-17.

It was somewhat fitting that Cardo, the 2019 winner of the tournament the last time it was held at Mission Hills, was pitted against Hettler, who placed third that year. In the first game, Hettler ran a break, but missed a return roquet after 2-back. Cardo attacked into the fourth corner with Red after making the #2 wicket, but he didn’t give Yellow a rush on Blue and couldn’t get a good rush for on the danger ball up to Red’s next wicket, so he had to settle for destroying Black and giving Yellow a rush on Red to the #2 wicket. Red ended up three-ball dead and Yellow had no break. To compound the situation, Cardo failed #2 with Yellow and had wired Blue on all the balls, giving Blue, which was for #6, a lift. Hettler then finished in two turns, 26-4.

The second game was all Cardo. Playing Blue and Black, he ran the first break around through three-back, missing a return roquet after that wicket. Later, after advancing Black from 4-back to the peg, Cardo set up a break for Blue near #2. After Hettler missed, Cardo was on his way and would have finished but for being obstructed by the peg after running penultimate and having to retire. Nevertheless, a short time later, Blue made rover and Cardo won 26-3.

That set up the rubber game for the championship. Hettler, playing Red and Yellow got an early break with Red and broke down at 3-back when he failed the hoop after picking up Blue in the first corner following 2-back. Cardo hit a cross-court shot with Black on Yellow, but knocked Yellow over the boundary. Yellow then hit Black, rush-peeled Red and ran the break to the peg, setting a leave for Red outside of the third corner. Red finished after Blue missed the long shot at Black and Hettler won 26-3.

In the Championship Flight Doubles, eight teams advanced to a double-elimination ladder after round-robin block play. The teams of Huneycutt/Cardo and Cumming/Lawrence were both undefeated in block play and ended up facing each other in the finals of the winner’s bracket. Cumming/Lawrence won that game 26-6 dropping Huneycutt/Cardo to the loser’s bracket. They met Paul and Gary Bennett, who had worked their way through the loser’s bracket.

The Bennett team won that game 26-21 and then faced Cumming/Lawrence in the finals needing to win two games in a row. Cumming/Lawrence won handily 26-4 and finished undefeated in the tournament. For Cumming, it was his sixth American Six Wicket doubles title. For Lawrence, it was a welldeserved first.

First Flight Singles was a similar format to that of the Championship Flight Doubles, consisting of two blocks of seven players with the top four in each block advancing to a doubleelimination ladder. Bob Gannon was first out of the A block and Cameron James won the B block. Other players advancing were Donna Dixon, Nancy Crouch, Ellie Griffith, Ron Eccles, Stuart Price and Nick Gray.

In the ladder, Eccles and Dixon advanced to the finals of the winner’s bracket. Eccles won 15-9, advancing into the finals and sending Dixon to the loser’s bracket to face Gannon. Gannon won that game in a close one 16-15. Eccles only needed to win one of two games against Gannon and won the first one 14-13 and with it, the title.

Seven First Flight Doubles teams played a round-robin block and the top three teams advanced to the playoffs with the top team receiving a bye. Mary Rodeberg and Ron Eccles received the top seed, followed by Gannon/James and Dixon and Steve Yoric. Gannon/James beat Dixon/Yoric 13-11. In the finals, Rodeberg/ Eccles won 15-11 over Gannon/James.

The Peyton Ballenger award for the top female finisher went to Lynda Sudderberg. The award is in honor of Peyton Ballenger, a croquet pro at PGA National whose life was tragically cut short.