9W Roundup

A Grassroots Story

By Gary L. Anderson

Gary Anderson recently published an article in the “Weekly Croquet Break” newsletter highlighting potential ways to connect with people through croquet. Long-grass croquet is sometimes kept to select members inside a private fiefdom (someone’s backyard or barn). Other times, it is spread out in the open for all to see and enjoy. I was pleased to read about the charity event for a botanical garden and how it was used to connect people with croquet, the equipment suppliers, the USCA and the pristine greenswards many of us enjoy. —Paul Bennett, Long-grass and 9-wicket Chair Once a game and now a sport, croquet can certainly stir the multiple facets of passion in many ways, at many levels and in all ages. My involvement with the Puget Sound Croquet Club (PSCC) near Seattle, Wash., between 2008 and 2018, and being a Northwest USCA District volunteer/contact person has helped me do something I love more than playing the game itself: spread the excitement of croquet.

The Magical Golden Croquet Ball is presented to Gary Anderson for service to the Queen of Hearts. The King subsequently knighted Sir Gary: the Queen’s Croquet Captain.

The photo is from the 2nd annual “Mallets in Wonderland,” a past charity event for a botanical garden in Seattle. I led a group of PSCC volunteers as we were asked to set up croquet. We strung up three half-size Class C 6-wicket golf croquet courts and supplied 14 oz balls (Oakley), 7/16” hoops (Croquet Sport/ Oakley) and 36” Jacques’ mallets from my home collection. We gave lessons and then held a packed doubles tournament. The event was a huge croquet success as I gave equipment manufacturer contact information to many contestants those years. A common statement: “I’ve never SEEN croquet equipment like this!” It was a joy to watch players making their first jump shots. From the photo, you’ll notice the red top, white pant uniform our club members wore. A regal uniform I created for us as we held our mallets high in an arc welcoming the King and Queen of Hearts to the event and spectators every year the event was held. For me, I love playing on a beautiful green lawn, flat or otherwise, with good friends/family. (I’ve come to also appreciate a great playing “surface” indifferent to imperfections.) It’s a privilege and honor to play on a wonderful court. Out of respect to the master(s) who have worked so hard to have made the lawn so, I wear my whites and on Sundays, I wear my dress whites: the pressed and orderly. This is a carryover from US Navy Submarine duty. Though I have been playing since 2008 on what I like to call “the flat grass” playing Golf, Association and USCA 6-Wicket, it’s the “long-grass,” although we do play on some pretty short home lawns, where the spirit runs deep, in time, in wine, in laughter after a crazy shot and with the many friends who play.Twentynine years ago, I started a croquet tournament in my yard called “Sticky Wicket” in Kitsap County, Wash., about two hours west of Seattle. Twenty-eight years ago I started a Doubles “Wine & Wickets” tournament. Sticky Wicket was a singles 9-wicket timed (45-minute matches) double-elimination event held on the third Saturday of August that included a barbecue. It started many years before I really knew of or set foot onto a “flat-grass” court. A few years after Sticky Wicket started and through a phone call to Jack Osborn, I discovered Croquet International, Jacques, Croquet Sport, George Wood and Oakley Woods. Within a couple of years, the equipment quickly became the adult version with 7/16” hoops, 14 oz balls, full 36” mallets and deadness boards that I crafted in my woodshop. People didn’t know this level of croquet equipment existed! They saw it as fast as Osborn could import it. At Sticky Wicket’s peak, and for many years, I needed to turn folks away as the 36 contestant ladder, almost all players wearing white, filled the three posted courts: “The Fabulous South Court,” “Queens Court” and “Upper Greensward.” Though the courts were hills, corners and odd shapes, my California trimmer kept the grass to a level of a deep lush fairway with some hoops requiring an uphill or downhill arc to pass through. The boundary string, corner flags, colored deadness boards, handsome pegs and equipment turned a yard into a tournament. OH...and there were rules to be followed! A 9-Wicket adaptation and old-school “Poison Rules” made luck a part of your victory. The rules were published with revisions

made through the years. Current Edition? 2001. The yard and expansive deck would see 60-75 people that day. To level the contestant field, I created a unique handicap system of bisques based on how well you ended in your last three tournaments. If you did too well, you were awarded “The Black Bisque” and you had to give up a turn... or two! Taking a page from “Harry Potter,” Dark Queen and Lord was your given Black Bisque namesake that day. Those who carried a Black Bisque, or three, were asked to step forward at the tournament’s start so the firsttime players knew who to watch out for. As you might guess, that didn’t always help. I still maintain a handicap for 168 different players who have engaged the Sticky Wicket. A couple of the PSCC players eventually came. All to find out that hitting a ball across the hill to roquet takes a bit of untested skill back at the club. With a Croquet Mallet Drill Team, I still have my team shirt, Wicked Wickets (a croquet ball arcade with ramps and jumps where the last hoop moved across the grass, and you had to shoot a ball through it while it was moving), great friends, good wine and good food; it was a summer’s day like no other... and it came every year on the same day. With some 20 players now bringing their own mallets and arriving in all white, to a backyard tournament, this was no longer an ordinary game! Due to COVID-19, and a move to a different home, the third-Saturdayof-August tournament ended with 27 consecutive years (a year longer than the Seattle Open) of handing down an impressive 16” tall chrome traveling Sticky Wicket Cup for a year, embroidered shirts for the top three finishers and fame as your 11 x 8.5” Champion photo became the battle cry for next year’s victory. The lure of wine and croquet, dare I say, a partnership many of the readers here enjoy, started the doubles Wine & Wickets again in 2021 at the new house with but a single treacherous court. We now play Golf Croquet instead of 9-Wicket, but the players who came to play insisted Sticky Wicket be brought back. And so it shall come this third Saturday of August — a treacherous plot of grass suitable for Dark Lords and Queens — a grassroots calling to the undeniable passion of croquet. Over the years, I have sent premium adult croquet sets along with string, string pegs (landscape mats pegs to hold the string down over hill and dale), rubber mallet, and, of course, the rules of Sticky Wicket to family in New York, Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin and Georgia, all of whom I introduced as I pack my traveling croquet set everywhere I go. Well, I don’t have to pack it there anymore, do I? Some have started their own yard tournaments, played on hill and dale, engaging even more, having a wonderful summer, and playing the game we here all love passionately: Croquet.