Sporting background has been big help to Bob Jackson

Press, 18 January 1986, Page 3

Sporting background has been big help to Bob Jackson

By

BOB SCHUMACHER

If you have a good head for chess, a feel for golf and a keen eye for billiards, you have all the right ingredients to become a top croquet player.

“They say croquet is a combination of chess, golf and billiards,” said Bob Jackson, one of New Zealand’s most accomplished mallet players, during a time out in the national croquet championships at the United lawns yesterday. “You need a good eye, ball sense and an appreciation of tactics,” said the quietly spoken Aucklander who started the game in 1971 at the age of 40 and three years later was off to England with the New Zealand team for the Macßobertson Shield test series against Australia and Great Britain.

That Jackson the croquet innocent became Jackson the international in such short time was hardly surprising. His background suggested that he would be at home with mallet and balls on the lawn of hoops. Before turning to croquet, Jackson he had a “good eye” in other sporting fields. In the fast reflex game of table tennis, he was supreme for nearly a decade. In the 19505, Jackson won 17 New Zealand open table tennis titles, including the men’s singles on

a record seven occasions. He had six successes in the men’s doubles and won four successive mixed doubles with Margaret Hoar. He was a member of the first officially selected New Zealand men’s team to compete in the world championships. That event was in London in 1954 and there Jackson was introduced to the sponge bat. The sponge coverings brought a new dimension to the game in New Zealand, and Jackson was the complete master. He was almost invincible in New Zealand, and in 1956 he became the first New Zealander to win an Australian title when he took the men’s singles. Jackson was a man for experiment and no sooner had his opponents worked out his sponge than he would try another. The world champion, Toshiaki Tanaka, of Japan, fell to Jackson when visiting New Zealand in 1957. When international rules were changed to ban sponge-faced bats Jackson made his exit from table tennis, but not just for that reason. He became a sevenday worker — "growing tomatoes” — and entered married life.

As a youth he gained a sharp eye playing “a lot of billiards and snooker, a bit of chess and some miniature golf.” All of those games

have helped him develop his croquet With the hoops just big enough for a ball to pass through, a good eye is essential; a player must have the same touch and feel for the greens as a golfer on the putting surface, and chess strategy also comes into croquet “when a player knows what to give away if he is to miss a shot.” Jackson says that there is much to croquet and it takes at least three years to master it — “although a good billiards players will take to it like a duck to water.” “You need a lot of practice when learning but after that it becomes automatic,

although you can’t do without a certain amount of practice especially at the start of the season (croquet being a summer sport). Jackson, who is starting to adjust to the Christchurch greens which are faster than those in the North Island, gives himself a better than even chance of making the New Zealand team of six to contest the Macßobertson Shield series in Britain this year. He made his debut in 1974 and represented his country for a second time when New Zealand was successful at home in 1979. He was not available for the 1982 series in Australia, but is trying hard for selec-

tion this year. As the winner of last year’s national men’s singles championship and as the North Island open and men’s singles champion he is entitled to rate his selection chances above 50 per cent, although performances over the next week will have an important bearing. Jackson is not one to dwell on past performances or records, but one senses that he would like to win the national open singles championship. He has won it six times previously, another victory would enable him to equal the number of singles titles he won when the dominant figure in New Zealand table tennis.