CROQUET NEWS:  The New 5 Lessons

Our intrepid adventurer made a sporting pilgrimage to Pinehurst -- and not once did he play golf. Yes, that's possible.

16-19 June 2005
Pinehurst Resort, Village of Pinehurst, North Carolina, USA
story by Josh Wolk in U. S. Open Championship Magazine
photos by Mark Peterson in U. S. Open Championship Magazine
cover by Michael Romney in U.S. Open Championship Magazine

Pinehurst practice putting green behind the Resort Clubhouse. Note croquet Court #1 on the left. Click for a close up.

The driver of the shuttle bus that would wisk me from the airport in Raleigh/Durham to Pinehurst Resort gave me an odd look when I revealed I had no golf clubs. No golf clubs? In Pinehurst? The resort itself has eight golf courses and another 40 or so courses are minutes away! No golf clubs? That's like an astronaut showing up a Cape Canaveral without any Tang.

But I wasn't at Pinehurst to play golf. That would be too predictable and, besides, there are so many other activities, such as tennis or paintball, paddling in any or all of the resort's three swimming pools, relaxing at the spa or hoisting the main sail at the resort's marina.

No, I had come to Pinehurst on a mission: to master new skills. I would cast my curiosity net wide to leave Pinehurst a Renaissance Man. Nay, the Renaissanciest! I would master my ground game via croquet and lawn bowling lessons. I would triumph over water in a kayak, I would find inner peace with a yoga session. And I would learn the art of self-sufficiency with a cooking lesson.

Let other guests try to perfect their golf swings by poring over dog-eared copies of Ben Hogan's "Five Lessons". I would receive five other lessons at Pinehurst, and not one would have anything remotely to do with supination.

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Thok!

Croquet has always seemed the epitome of a "leisure sport", the perfect competition for people who don't want to spill their mint juleps. As I donned my traditional croquet whites, it struck me this clothing might be the only way to get some adrenaline into the sport: Look out! One false amble and you could end up with a grass stain on your pants!

Getting loose.

Croquet's history is hazy. Some say it began in France, others say Ireland. But it became popuilar in the form we know today in Great Britain in the mid-19th century. It soon traveled to the United States but didn't really catch on until the late 1960's. As for Pinehurst, a different form of croquet -- called "roque" -- actually was the first sport played here, as James W. Tufts, the resort's founder, was an enthusiast. But it faded in popularity until 1981, when the three "courts" that exist today at Pinehurst were built at the Resort Clubhouse. [Court #1, Courts #2 and #3] In addition to the state and regional competitions that are held at Pinehurst each year, a couple of other big events have visited, such as the internationally-recognized North Carolina Open, and the U. S. Croquet Championship in the late 1990s.

A croquet court measures 105 feet by 84 feet [35 yards by 28 yards]. Arranged around its perimeter are six "wickets", inverted U-shaped arches set into the ground. Each player (sometimes it's two-man teams) begins with two balls, each the size of a softball, and a mallet, and the goal is to be the first to hit the balls through six hoops twice each, in order, for a total of 12 wickets. That done, the player must then hit the balls against a single peg in the middle of the circuit. First through each wicket gets a point and if no one has reached the peg by the end of the game -- they usually are timed -- then most points wins. There are offensive and defensive strategies, but as Pinehurst's croquet pro, 1993 national champion Mack Penwell, explained all this to me, I began to feel my mind had been whacked by my own mallet. So we just played.

Mack's mallet has a monogram on it; clearly he knows what he's doing. A gregarious North Carolinian, he explained we would be playing a modified version [Golf Croquet], with a lot more whacking than in the far more strategic tournament play [Association Croquet]. Mack teaches this version to newbies because ball-whacking is much more rewarding for a first-timer. It's the closet people wearing sweater vests and pith helmets come to a fistfight.

Nice shot!

Mack tutored me on grip and stance: Stand just behind the ball, mallet hanging down, its bricklick head parallel to the ground. Then he aimed and swung the mallet back between his legs, letting it drop to whack the ball straight-on.

"Thok!"

I might not have had my name on my mallet, but this seemed eminently masterable. Sure enough, my first few swings were solid connections. I even knocked a couple of Mack's balls flying, to which he fenerously drawled, "Now they-uhs a great shot!" I was clearly a croquet prodigy, and I began brainstorming what snappy moniker I'd get engraved on my mallet: Croquet Monsieur? The Secret Mallet? Something Wicket This Way Comes?

Then, while mentally embossing, I got my ball trapped in one of the wickets; they're barely wider than a ball. Mack explained that this was why your mallet should connect just on its upswing; this English gives the ball forward momentum to carry it through the wicket. He demonstrated, and then began showing me other croquet skills, like leapforgging his ball over mine -- he swings from above and bounces the ball against the ground -- and thenknocking mine so far out of position that I practicall had to take a bus to get it back. All this Mack did genially as a way of explaining the game's potential, but it proved to me this game is more complicated and trickier than I thought. As I began the long trek to retrieve my ball, I realized it might be more appropriate to monogram my shoes.

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