The Sport of Croquet - A VERY Brief Overview

The basic object of croquet is to navigate your balls through wickets and peg them out before your opponent does so. Croquet as sport is played on lawns which more resemble a billiard table than a back yard lawn. The grass on these croquet lawns is similar to the turf on a golf putting green -- very short and extremely fast. The wickets, mallets, and balls are significantly heavier than the back yard variety of croquet. The clearance of a ball through a wicket is no more than 1/8th of an inch.

At the Berry Downs Croquet Club we play many variations of croquet:

• Association Croquet - the game as played the world over.
• American Rules Croquet - a modified version created and popularized in America by Jack Osborn.
• Golf Croquet - players contest each hoop similar to match play golf.
• One Ball - same as Association Croquet, except with one ball per player instead of two.
• Bocci Croquet - like Bocci, but with mallets and balls.

All games are played on a court with six wickets and one center peg as shown in the following layout. The order and direction of running wickets can be found in the above links which describe the various versions of of the game.