The match begins conservatively, with both players mostly knocking their own balls out of bounds to protect them. Watching these top players go at it, the game seems a hybrid of chess strategy and pool-shot execution. The four balls are scattered throughout the court in ways that probably won’t make sense to the lay viewer until several shots after the fact. Being surrounded by people who’ve played for years, one gets a hint of what it would be like to be on a Wheel of Fortune showcase where everyone else has been able to solve the puzzle for several turns while you’re still buying vowels. Finally, a missed shot by Mattson opens the door for Ekstrom, but he gets the ball “stuck in the jaws” of the wicket, so he’ll need another shot to get through, an incredibly unlucky turn of events for Ekstrom. With the game fully in Mattson’s control, Ekstrom’s wife, Martie, also an accomplished player, gets up and walks back to the pavilion. “I don’t know what’s going on,” she says, shaking her head. “He usually hits all those shots. He’s really going to have to pick it up tomorrow.”
No rest for the wicket
The weird, wonderful — and absolutely cutthroat — world of competitive croquet.
But, alas, there would be no tomorrow. Saturday morning, Mother Nature provided no clemency. Dark clouds hung overhead, and heavy, driving rain poured down. When I arrived at the club around 9 a.m., pools had already started to form on the lawns. The tournament director could do little but call the tourney and declare those with the most wins the champions, giving Jim Turner his first Berkshire Invitational championship, thumbs intact. “I wish we didn’t get rained out,” Turner said when I asked him about it a few weeks later while he played a tournament in Greenwich, Connecticut. “I’d have liked to have given [the other players] another run at me, because I think they still think my winning is kind of a fluke.” He pauses, chuckling. “On the other hand, I did just win the tournament, so … maybe I’m not that upset.”
Kevin Alexander is a Wellesley native and a senior editor at http://www.Thrillist.com. For familial reasons, he uses the Irish grip when swinging a croquet mallet. Send comments to magazine@globe.com.
If you want to play…
The best thing to do is to become a member of the United States Croquet Association ($65 for an individual, $100 for a couple per year). Mail in an application downloaded from the group’s website: http://www.croquetamerica.com/usca/join. With proper notice, USCA members can gain access to clubs all over Massachusetts, including ones in Marion, Edgartown, Lenox, and Nantucket.
If you’d like to join a local club, Boston Croquet plays out of Milton and meets regularly during the summer. Dues for the season are $125 and include membership in the USCA. For more information, visit the club’s rather rudimentary website: http://www.sites.google.com/site/bostoncroquet/home.
If you prefer to do it on your own, you’ll need a large, flat, preferably well-manicured lawn (official lawns measure 105 feet by 84 feet, though as long as you keep it proportional, you can always shrink it down to half size, 52½ feet by 42 feet). You’ll also need equipment – quality full-size sets can be had for $200, and should include four balls, four mallets, wicket clips, six or nine wickets, and two stakes. The USCA website also provides an extensive list of equipment manufacturers and service providers to help you get everything from professional-grade mallets and umpire boards to synthetic turf.
READER COMMENTS »
View reader comments » Comment on this story »