Paul Neubecker Wins on the Courts Where He Learned to Play

By Ryan Thompson, Tournament Director

In his final year of being a part-time Buffalo resident, before fully transplanting to the Big Apple, Paul Neubecker has won his hometown championship. It was a fitting victory for the young player who first learned how to play croquet on these courts in Delaware Park.

Neubecker, 35, began competing in the Buffalo Croquet Club’s 6-Wicket Invitational when the tournament first began seven years ago, winning consecutive Second Flight Doubles championships, before winning First Flight Doubles in 2018. It would be several years before he would win again on his hometown soil, as Neubecker transitioned to Championship Flight.

The Championship Flight favorites would make the playoffs on Sunday (including David Isaacs, Rich Curtis and Doug Moore). Curtis defeated Moore in a 11-9 semifinal sleeper to remain undefeated in the tournament thus far, and Neubecker beat Isaacs 16-12 after an exchange of breaks. But Neubecker would go on to beat Curtis in a lopsided 24-9 final, sending Curtis back to Rochester with his third runner-up trophy from Buffalo.

In First Flight, tournament newcomer Bryan Zindel returned to his Illinois corn farm with nothing but tracking points and trophies. The 3-handicap went undefeated in singles, beating the top seed Courtney Green (who is somehow ranked in the Grand Prix standings as both a man and woman) in the final. Buffalo Croquet Club President Bob Gannon, who squeaked out a place in the playoffs via gross wickets, would win the third place trophy over Ron Millican by one net wicket, after each fell in the semifinals.

Another tournament newcomer Quinn Reinhardt impressed with his croquet play at the previous week’s Rochester Croquet tournament and in between his summer studies at Cornell University. With the Buffalo tournament continuing to draw low handicaps, the 5-handicap was relegated to Second Flight. However, he would fall in the finals 21-20 to underdog Kathleen Green, who returned to her sixth consecutive Buffalo tournament on a mission to change her 9-handicap. She would leave with the victory and a whopping 42 tracking points after going undefeated. Jan Fisher, who had also gone undefeated in block play, would pick up the third place trophy after losing in the semifinals.

With an added fourth-game slot on Sunday, doubles semifinalists were faced with an earlier morning than usual, after imbibing late Saturday night at the exclusive Saturn Club. Celebrating the 100th anniversary of when the club was raided by the FBI during Prohibition, there were casino and card games, jazz bands and a mock police bust (complete with former Buffalo Croquet Club President Bill Rupp’s expert siren operation). 

Quinn Reinhardt and Jennifer Joseph would defeat Lee Anderson and Peter Bowers in the First Flight Doubles finals, and Brian Hovis and Rich Laging would defeat Paul Neubecker and F. Scott Kennedy in the Championship Flight Doubles finals.

In other tournament news, the Buffalo Croquet Club welcomed back its northern friends from Croquet Canada: Patrick Little, Chris Loat, K. Jane Beharriell, and Anne Frost Robinson, who even brought her USCA Hall of Fame redcoat to the affair.

And Tournament Director Ryan Thompson notes having witnessed one of the most unusual one-wicket wins he has seen in croquet, when he noticed Second Flighters Jennifer Joseph and Bill Vrooman involved in a hotly contested game of refusing to play. Sitting courtside, the two opponents continued passing every 45 seconds as the sun began to set over the courts. Eventually the boardkeeper mediated the duo down to an agreed-upon 10 minutes remaining, and the two would wait until only a few minutes were left before hitting another ball. Ultimately, the underdog Bill Vrooman’s strategy would prove unsuccessful, as Joseph escaped with a 4-3 victory.

Thompson insists that even during what seems like the dullest moments, there never really is a dull moment in Buffalo. See you all next August.