The USCA posted the Solomon Trophy team rosters over the weekend. Checking the rankings it shapes up to be one of the more competitive events in the series. Looking at the top three spots the Americans match up very well. Spots four through six favor Great Britain according to the rankings. The event will be held at the Mission Hills Country Clup in California, December 4-7. Great Britain leads the series 17-0. For more details on the history and format, check out this Croquet Australia web page.
Ben Rothman has a more detailed re-count of Robert Fulford's recent nontuple. He even does a little translating for those not fully versed in association croquet lingo.
David Drazin had this recent article on the Croquet World on the origins of croquet. Ultimately, it appears that we are still settled on Ireland, though it always seems that there is speculation that it began in France. I'd like to buy into that one as I am thinking I could force the workplace in allowing a day off for croquet on Bastille Day.
From that same Origins article, this quote near the end caught my eye:
"Already there are signs that golf has eaten up more than its share of the landscape, and gateball's rapid rise may be in some way related to its space efficiency as compared to golf, or even to croquet."
I've always wondered how golf courses seem to thrive (prior to the "great recession" that is), yet the business plans for croquet clubs seem to be problematic -- number of players vs playing fields available vs maintenance and startup costs. Still, the overall expense of building and maintaining 18-hole golf course relative to maintaining four or even eight croquet fields doesn't even seem comparable. Thus far, I think bringing new people to the game and building the needed base of players for a club is a challenge due to the perceived complexity of the rules. However, I think golf croquet is a fantastic intro to the game and the utilization of that form is still under development as a player recruitment tool. In other words, I see signs that the recruitment problem is being solved and the game could be on the verge of a possible growth stage.