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June 2001
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1997-2000
 
New York City
September 2001

Croquet: A Gentle Lawn Game
By Tom Kertes

“There are only three resorts in the entire United States right now that teach croquet,” said Jerry Stark, who teaches this unique sport at the Meadowood Resort in California’s Napa Valley. “It’s a great sport but it has never achieved widespread popularity till this day.”

Indeed, the game’s greatest fame came during Hollywood’s Golden Age when movie moguls like Louis B. Mayer, Darryl Zanuck, and Jack Warner would play daily and, dressed in impeccable whites, hold regular weekend croquet parties on their magnificently manicured lawns.

“Of course, that is the crux of the problem,” said Stark with a smile. “To play the game as it’s meant to be played you do need perfect lawns. So the costs are exceedingly high. Also, this is a real difficult game to learn if you want to play it at the highest level.”

The basic idea of croquet is to get two of your balls (colored blue, red, black, and yellow) into your hoops in a certain order before your opponent does by pushing them through strategically placed wickets with a mallet. But, according to Stark, “once you learn to play the game, you’ll realize that there are a lot of nuances to it.”

“Croquet is a cross between billiards and chess,” he said. “Billiards, because it’s all about angles. And chess because of its intense, almost warlike, competitiveness, profound use of strategy, and the necessity of always thinking three or four moves ahead.”

The sport was born on the British Isles in the mid 19th century and soon migrated to the rest of the Commonwealth and other English-speaking countries. Strangely, this “sport of kings” suffered something of a setback in the 1890s in the U.S. when the Boston clergy spoke out against the “drinking, gambling, and other licentious behavior” that was associated with it. The sport then made a real comeback in the 1920s, becoming the favored pastime of entertainment and literary figures, including the famed Algonquin Roundtable.

Today, croquet remains most popular in England, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. In the U.S., it’s played by approximately 10,000 men and women, both in its popular (Golf Croquet) and most competitive (USCA 6-Wicket Croquet) forms.

To Stark’s great sorrow, “it’s unlikely that croquet will ever become an Olympic sport” even while oddities like whitewater kayaking, beach volleyball, and synchronized swimming are “in.” There are only 17 member countries in the International Croquet Federation.

Due to croquet’s limited exposure, even an acknowledged expert like Stark is likely to have come to the sport by mere accident. ”When I was still living in Kansas City, a friend invited me to a croquet tournament out in the woods,” he said. “I’m still not sure why I went but I went. There were wickets made out of old coat hangers and 35 kegs of beer for 150 people.”

“Needless to say, I fell in love right away.” And the rest is croquet history.

 

Education Update, Inc., P.O. Box 20005, New York, NY 10001. Tel: (212) 481-5519. Fax: (212) 481-3919. Email: ednews1@aol.com.
All material is copyrighted and may not be printed without express consent of the publisher. © 2001.




SPORTS & CAMPS

Leading into The Future through Hoops

Croquet: A Gentle Lawn Game


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