The Park Drive 2000 was a series of invitational

snooker Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sport played on a rectangular Billiard table#Snooker and English billiards tables, billiards table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six Billiard table#Pockets 2, pockets: one at each corner and ...

tournaments staged between 1971 and 1972. All four editions were sponsored by Park Drive cigarettes. The four invited players played each other in a round-robin, with the top two then contesting a final. The winner of the final received prize money of £750 and the runner up received £550. John Spencer won three of the tournaments, with

Ray Reardon Raymond Reardon (8 October 1932 – 19 July 2024) was a Welsh professional snooker player who dominated the sport in the 1970s, winning the World Snooker Championship six times and claiming more than a dozen other professional titles. Due to h ...

winning the other. Each final was recorded and shown on '' BBC Grandstand''. The highest in any of the matches was a 146 compiled by Reardon in the Spring 1972 event.

Winners

1971 (January)

The event was played between four invited professionals, as a triple round-robin. Matches were played across 18 club venues, with the final placing below. As the top two players in the round-robin, Spencer and Williams played each other in the final, which was televised by the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

. Spencer won the final 4–1.

1971 (October)

The event took place at venues throughout England between 2 and 31 October 1971 and was played between four invited professionals, as a triple round-robin.

, who had not been able to participate in the January event as he had been on a tour of South Africa, was included. As the top two players in the round-robin, Spencer and Reardon played each other in the final which took place at the RAFA Club, Manchester, with Reardon winning 4–3. Reardon had needed Spencer to concede points from a shot when only the and were left in the deciding frame, to obtain enough points to win.

1972 (Spring)

The event was played between four invited professionals, as a triple round-robin. Reardon made a break of 146 in the round-robin stage, which was the highest-ever break in competitive play until overtaken by Spencer's

maximum break A maximum break (also known as a maximum, a 147, or orally, a onefourseven) is the highest possible in snooker in normal circumstances and is a special type of . A player compiles a maximum break by potting all 15 with 15 for 120 points, fo ...

at the 1979 Holsten Lager International.

Alex Higgins Alexander Gordon Higgins (18 March 1949 – 24 July 2010) was a Northern Irish professional snooker player and a two-time world champion who is remembered as one of the most iconic figures in the sport's history. Nicknamed "Hurricane Higgi ...

, playing in his first major professional tournament, came second in the round robin rankings and lost 3–4 to Spencer. The following day, the same two players played the start of the week-long final of the

1972 World Snooker Championship The 1972 World Snooker Championship was a professional snooker tournament that took place between March 1971 and 26 February 1972, as an edition of the World Snooker Championship. The final was played at Selly Park#Sporting history, Selly Park Br ...

1972 (Autumn)

The event took place at venues throughout England between 27 September and 29 October 1972 and was played between four invited professionals, as a triple round-robin. Spencer finished behind Higgins in the round-robin standings, but beat him 5–3 in the final. The final was held at Belle Vue, Manchester, in front of 2,000 spectators.

References

{{snooker tournaments Snooker non-ranking competitions Recurring sporting events established in 1971 Recurring events disestablished in 1972 Defunct snooker competitions