ON THE CROQUET LAWNS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 243, 13 October 1937, Page 4

ON THE CROQUET LAWNS

By “Penultimate.’’ The commencement of the croquet season has discovered still greater numbers taking up this game, which promises to win still further popularity in Wanganui, especially as the New Zealand championships will be decided here in January.

With the advent of "summer-time,” the lengthening of the days, and the growing warmth of the sunshine, the thoughts of the ardent devotee of the fascinating game of croquet, turn to the opening of the season, to recollections of past games lost and won, to challenges and inter-club play; to club and association tournaments; to changes in bisqueing; to alteration in rules; to new developments in strategy and tactics; to varieties of openings, and perhaps finally, to the thought of the great Dominion tournament, which, this year, is to be held in Wanganui.

Perhaps no other out-door game calls for so many individual decisions to be made during the course of one game, or affords so much scope for initiative and skill as does croquet. When it is remembered that the bisques, or in other words, the handicap points, range from plus 12 (in the case of a beginner) to minus 5 (for Mr. Cyril Millar, the Australian champion), it will be realised that there is never a point at which one can say that one has attained a mastery of the game. For most people the development of a good style of the ability to win a fair number of games with equals is the result of painstaking practice over a number of years, and as in all other games of skill, the old adage holds—“practice makes perfect.”

Front the beginning, however, there is nothing in the nature of drudgery in croquet practice. Right from the start there is the fascination of attempting to lay out a break, of getting a mastery over the mallet, of inducing the balls to travel in the right direction, the heartening of a‘ wonderful fluke now and again, then the making of a break of four or six,

and the final realisation that some day one will be able to make an all-round break, to wire one’s opponent, and then continue triumphantly to complete the second round and win.

Who should play croquet? Anyone who appreciates a game which gives endless opportunities for the exercise of one’s ingenuity and initiative, and which depends not on chance, but skill, should take up the game of croquet. It is the summer game, par excellence, for those who have passed the early spring of life; and husband and wife can get a community of interest in croquet, which will give a new meaning to life.

Croquet is continually developing, and becoming more and more scientific, and during the past twenty years a silent revolution has been taking place, and modern croquet bears as much resemblance to the old game, as does the tennis of to-day to that played in the mid-Victorian era. In this connection the following, from the Christian Science Monitor, will be found interesting and very much to the point:— Croquet is a game about which misconceptions exist. There is in circulation a thought-picture based upon old wood-cuts, depicting ladies and gentlemen of mature years coaxing little balls through large hoops in a very leisurely manner on the restful Hee-shaded lawn of the vicarage garden. A pretty notion. But in no sense a portrayal of the modern facts of the case.

The game to-day is a matter of relentless efficiency, of careful plotting and planning, several moves ahead, of unremitting concentration and severe discipline. And, though I almost forgot to mention it, of hitting the ball with a mallet, an operation that

has to be carried out with precision and “touch” comparable to those demanded from a billiard player. I am not sure that such a comparison does not flatter the billiard player, for he, when trying to persuade a bad to go into a pocket, has something like (if not exactly like) 1 7-16 inches to spare. A croquetter confronted with such latitude as that when aiming to shoot a ball through a hoop might almost be excused if he thought he were at the entrance of Blackwall Tunnel.

As a matter of fact, there are points of close resemblance between croquet and billiards, and the aim in each game is to “make a break” i.e., remain in play. A croquet star, while doing this, runs the ball through hoop after hoop, while his opponent stands around, helpless, inactive, and hoping every moment to see the mistake which will “let him in” to turn the tables. So the initiative passes from one party to another until one of them, having negotiated all the hoops, clinches the argument with a double hit on the peg that forms the winning post.

And even if there should be some doubt as to what I am talking about, enough has been said to indicate that the game is studded with hazards, replote with sudden and dramatic vicissitudes, and calls for rare qualities of consistency and anticipation. Not to mention sufficient self restraint to check yourself from hitting your opponent over the ear with a mallet as his campaign unfolds to your utter discomforture and rout. Perhaps it is because croquet is so very much a campaign that it exercises such a strong appeal for major generals, colonels, and other military oilicers of exalted rank. Croquet enjoys another distinction. It is the one serious game that men and women play against one another, in full earnest on level terms. The English “open” championship, for example, draws competitors of both sexes and more than once a woman has proved victorious. Which brings up at once the name of the greatest woman player of them all—Miss D. D. Steel. She wields a magic mallet. The Wanganui Croquet Club commences its season to-morrow at 2 p.m., and visitors are heartily welcomed. In future issues this column will review items of interest to devotees of the game of croquet.