CROQUET COACHING: Fast vs Slow Lawn

3 November 2006
National Croquet Center, West Palm Beach, Florida, USA
St. Andrews Club, Delray Beach, Florida, USA
by Leo Nikora

I was disappointed by my performance at the USCA Eights, and discussed it with Louis Nel after the tournament.

I said that I understood over-shooting a lot at first because I normally play on a slow lawn, and it takes a while to "rescale" my play to a fast lawn. But even after rescaling, I "never played my game". I never even tried to set New Standard leaves, which I set all the time at home. I never even tried a triple peel, which I try all the time at home, and complete more than half the time.

He said that fast lawns are harder to play on than slow lawns. Good players like a fast lawn because it "separates the men from the boys". Scaling our home court to three-quarter size compensates for the magnitude of the force required, but not for the precision of the force required.

The chart clearly shows this. To hit a ball in the Target Distance requires greater Force precision on a Fast Lawn than on a Slow Lawn.

This was further confirmed the next day, when I played at St. Andrews Club. The full-sized lawn there is slower than at the National Croquet Center, and the grass is Seashore Paspalum — just like Waipuilani Park and Koele Lodge. It immediately felt familiar to me. After just a few rescaling practice shots, I became more accurate than at home because the lawn was perfectly flat, and perfectly uniform. I ran my first ball to hoop #4B, and set a perfect New Standard leave. I completed an easy triple peel with my second ball.

18 June 2007
by Samir Patel on the Nottingham List

Having measured lawn speeds at most recent tournaments in which I have played, the following may (or may not) be relevant.

Figures below are speeds once the morning dew has cleared. Clearly nothing can be done about rain; heavy downpours can add 1-2 seconds. Lawn speeds (in seconds) relate to the time taken for a ball to travel 35 yards; this takes longer on a fast lawn than on a slow one, so a "10 second lawn" is faster than a "9 second lawn". This is the traditional lawn-speed measurement (aka "Plummer"). Measurements can also be made with a stimpmeter type device (see Oxford Croquet for details of both the "Lambertometer" and for calculations for converting "Plummers" to "Lamberts" or "Nels"). I prefer the former, simply because it only needs stuff you tend to have to hand at a croquet lawn - a ball, a mallet, a watch and a person to swing the mallet (although the competence of the latter is sometimes an issue).

I think that 10 seconds should be considered a "normal" pace for a lawn. It is a comfortable pace and allows most strokes to be played without undue force; no player with a reasonable technique (i.e. pendulum-like swing) should find it difficult to rush a ball the length of the lawn. At the a-class end of the scale, 9-10 second lawns seem to turn the game into a shooting competition, with the breaks and peels appearing to be relatively comfortable.

Slower lawns clearly require greater force to be put into shots; I think that it is about 7-8 seconds where break strategy needs changing because some shots become unplayable. (For example, at this pace, the roll from hoop 1 to 2 and 3 becomes a test of strength rather than accuracy, and so there is merit in putting the hoop 2 pioneer further south, so there isn't so far to go if you don't get a rush after 1). Clearly the point at which certain shots cease to be available will vary from player to player, but it is around 8 seconds where casual conversation at tournaments tends to turn to slow lawns.

Significantly below 8 seconds, lawns quickly become unplayable; or at least breaks as we'd understand them become almost impossible and the game becomes something of a test of strength rather than accuracy. Although I have seen a TP on a lawn that was subsequently measured at around 5-6 seconds (at that required the ball to be airborne for much of the 35 yards), I broke a mallet trying to do the same earlier that day.

Up to around 12 seconds shouldn't cause many players too much problem. The extra pace starts requiring more accuracy, but all shots are available - even the Hogen roll becomes one requiring care rather than brute force. Good break play gets rewarded, with approaches across the face of a hoop or across rush-lines becoming dangerous (since a similarly casual bad shot is likely to leave a 30 degree hoop rather than a 15 degree one)

Much above 12 seconds, lawns start to become difficult. This occurs less often, but having watched a B-class tournament on 15-second lawns, I think some of the players might have described them as "unplayable", if it wasn't for the fact that the previous weekend saw the top players completing TPs.

Personally, I would like to see clubs aiming for 10 seconds for day-to-day play, with that as a minimum for tournaments and >=12 seconds for the top tournaments. It is interesting (but not necessarily unexpected) to note that clubs with watering systems (e.g. Southwick, Parkstone, Cheltenham) tend to be in the 8-10 second range, while those without (e.g. Surbiton, Compton, Bowdon) tend to be in the 10-12 second range.

As has been reported, Cheltenham for the Opens in 2003 recorded 17+ seconds. At that pace all but the top few players struggled, with only a handful looking like they were expecting to complete delayed TPs, but damage to the lawns was reported afterwards. Nailsea has watering system (I think), but produced (presumably by turning it off) lawns playing at around 14-15 seconds in the middle of the day (although there was a significant amount of dew in the mornings and evening which slowed up the lawns) for the 'Ell last year, and I haven't heard of any long-term damage.