This Isn't Your Backyard Croquet

When Todd and Russ and I were in Christchurch, we stumbled upon a lawn bowling and croquet club.  One of the members was there, and it was when he was explaining their rules to us that I quickly realized this wasn't your average game of backyard croquet that is often played in the Barrantes' backyard.

Because we are avid fans of odd sports made up of a primarily older crowd (curling, bocce, lawn bowling, full contact cribbage), we didn't hesitate to be in touch with the local croquet club.  It seems like each neighborhood has its own croquet and lawn bowling clubs, and the Punga Croquet Club is about a 10 minute walk from our house.  Russell, the club coach, responded welcomingly to my email and invited Todd and I to meet him at the club this Saturday to check out the club and the game.

First, it's about the cutest little club on the planet.  It sits at the top of one of Dunedin's many hills adjacent to a golf course and has beautiful vistas of both the harbor and the ocean.  Not a bad place to spend a Saturday afternoon.  They have a little clubhouse with a tiny kitchen, a few tables, and 'lockers' for your croquet mallet!  Genius!

Russell got us right out on the court to first play a game of Golf Croquet.  Basically, after one person goes through the hoop, everyone then aims for the next one.  The hoops (which we called wickets at home) are not made of nice bendy wire but instead of strong steel pipes, and it barely looks like the ball will make it through.  The mallets are quite a bit of bigger and heavier than our backyard ones.  The head of the mallet is square, and you can only use the ends to hit the balls.

Instead of standing and swinging like you would in golf, you swing the mallet between your legs.  It's a bit tricky (even though it seems like it would be ridiculously easy), and Russell was able to do some pretty fancy stuff (like making one ball jump over another) with his mad mallet skills.

After one round of Golf Croquet (Russell vs. Todd and I), we asked Russell to show us how their regular games are played.  We figured that actually playing a few hoops with the official rules would make it much easier to understand the rules.  It's known as Association Croquet, and if you click on that link, it will bring you to a page describing the rules.  I don't even know how to describe it.  Each team has to make it through all the hoops in order, but you can hit the other team's balls to help you get around the field.  There is an incredible amount of strategy involved (even though you wouldn't think so upon first glance - another similarity to curling).  Todd and I will clearly get our asses kicked the first 450 times we play, but we'll have fun anyway.

Their season starts next week, and they play Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday afternoons.  You can drop in anytime to play or watch, and we definitely plan on doing that.  We'll be watching first, to see the experts play and to get a better sense of the game, and then we'll put our sense of accomplishment on the back burner and play.

Next sport...lawn bowling!  (Thanks to Tippy and Shep, dear friends from California for first introducing us to lawn bowling in Newport Beach.)