CROQUET NEWS:  Wizards of the Wickets

For most, croquet is a goofy game in grandma's back yard.
For these folks, though, it's wickedly competitive.

17 September 2005
Belleair Country Club, Belleair, Florida, USA
by Marsha Strickhouser in St. Petersburg Times

Their white shirts and slacks stand out crisply against the green grass underfoot and Clearwater Bay on the horizon. The historic Belleview Biltmore Resort & Spa stands behind them, as crystal-winged dragonflies complete a genteel scene straight out of The Great Gatsby.

But don't let the setting - or these 70-something players - fool you. Their beloved game demands the physical skills of golf, the tactical thinking of chess, maneuvers of billiards and a fiercely competitive nature.

Yes, croquet is polite and humane. Players are on their own honor to call their mistakes.

But these retired physicians, university administrators, dentists, and CPAs clearly enjoy outwitting their partners.

"It's nothing like the garden variety" of croquet, said Betty Crisler, 72, president of the Belleair Country Club Croquet Club, which took up residency at the Belleair Country Club in 2001. The game can be described as tactical, ruthless and even sadistic. It's enjoyed by many chief executive officers who earn six figures and up and who enjoy the warfare. These days, there's even a "cutthroat" game, and the younger set has gotten into extreme croquet.

"Croquet is a fairly easy game to learn, but a difficult one to master," says Crisler, who runs the golf croquet games on Thursdays at 4:30 p.m. and a six-wicket clinic on Mondays and Fridays at 9:30 a.m.

The grass here is laser-leveled, the newest thing in croquet technology.

"It's one of the best courts I've ever played on," Crisler said.

Ottie Barber, 79, drives 45 miles round trip from Tampa for her love of croquet.

"We've become addicted to six-wicket," the regulation game with an emphasis on strategy, Barber said. Six-wicket is probably the more difficult of the two most commonly played versions. Barber and her friends also travel to municipal courts in Winter Park and Sarasota and Venice, two of the closest municipal courts.

Her friend, retired Air Force Lt. Col. Martha Cameron, 85, served in the strategic air command during World War II, being stationed in England, Africa, Italy, France and elsewhere. But when she won her first finals for women's doubles in Palm Beach a few years ago, it was one of the biggest thrills of her life.

"It's a mean game, you know," said Cameron, who first started playing at Tampa Yacht and Country Club. "You can treat people badly. But you have to be a good sport."

She, too, plays six-wicket.

"The pure game is the only way to go for me," she said.

The Belleair croquet group now has at least 40 members, most of whom have their own personalized mallets, which can cost $100 to $450.

The club "is just one more amenity for our members," said Belleair Country Club general manager Ed Shaughnessy. After the board voted on it, the majority of the funds were donated by residents Walter Cooper and Zip Long. The club maintains the land.

The sticky wicket? You have to be a member of the Belleair Biltmore Country Club to play. Social memberships, including privileges for croquet, fitness center, tennis, marina, and limited golf, have a $1,000 initiation fee with $175 monthly dues, according to membership director Maureen Ballinger. That fee will be raised Oct. 1 to a $2,500 initiation fee and $250 monthly dues.

"They like us because when they're showing new people around property, they think we look classy," Crisler said.

As depicted in films such as The Aviator, Sense and Sensibility, A Room With A View and North by Northwest, croquet has had its ins and outs over the years. In the 1890s, Boston clergy criticized it for the drinking and gambling associated with it. Harpo Marx, of the famous brothers, writer Dorothy Parker and other Hollywood types embraced it as it reemerged in the 1930s and '40s with the entertainment and literary sets.

Now the United States Croquet Association estimates there are 10,000 serious players in the United States. There are at least 165 clubs in the country, with 38 in Florida. The National Croquet Center, dubbed the largest dedicated croquet facility in the world, is in West Palm Beach as is the USCA headquarters. Universities are starting teams every year. Ivy League schools seem to have the hold on them, but Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach also has a team.

Croquet is also very popular in Britain, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, with about 50,000 players.

It's also the only sport where both men and women start with the same handicaps.

Rogers Hedberg, 74, has been playing for three years.

"My eyesight doesn't allow me to play golf anymore," he said. "But it's something I can do and be in the fresh air. And it's good therapy."

While Hedberg played golf for decades, he has become legally blind and has had to give it up.

But on Thursday afternoon, as Hedberg hit the winning shot for his team, Crisler observed, "he can still hit the ball, though."

TO LEARN MORE

Call the Belleair Country Club, 1 Country Club Lane, (727) 461-7171.