Club Links: Houston Croquet Association

Houston Croquet Association / Club
The Houston Croquet Association is a member club of the United States Croquet Association and plays on the croquet lawns in Memorial Park.  We play the 6-wicket version of the game which differs from the 9-wicket backyard game that most people are familiar with.  It is sometimes referred to as "the sport of croquet" or competitive croquet.  As a sport, croquet is played competitively around the world in various forms.  There are American rules, Association Laws and Golf croquet, each with it's own merits and nuances.  The HCA participates in all forms of the game.  Whether you want to play competitively or just for fun, croquet has something to offer for everyone. http://www.houstoncroquet.com/

See more North American Croquet Clubs in our online directory:
croquetnetwork.com/north-american-croquet-clubs

May Tournament Winners

5/04 -- Peachwood Classic/Columbia, MD -- Ben Rothman
5/04 -- Dorothy Fosse Invitational/Palm Coast, FL -- Ted Knopf
5/10 -- Gamewell Junior Open (doubles golf)/Lenoir, NC -- Travis Shomaker & Taiwan Harper
5/10 -- Croquet Ball/Overland Park, KS -- Greg Lloyd
5/17 -- Massachusetts State Championship/Lenox, MA -- Stephen Carter
5/17 -- North American Open/Windsor, CA -- Ben Rothman
5/18 -- Southeast Regional Championship (singles)/Hilton Head, SC -- Ken Scoggins
5/18 -- Southeast Regional Championship (doubles)/Hilton Head, SC -- Bill Berne & Billie Jean Berne
5/18 -- Piping Rock Invitational (singles)/Locus Valley, NY -- Dick Sullivan
5/18 -- Piping Rock Invitational (doubles)/Locus Valley, NY -- Rufus Bayard & Ron Shiftan
5/25 -- Rocky Mountain International Open/Denver, CO -- Rich Lamm
5/26 -- Delaware Croquet Club Invitational (singles)/Wilmington, DE -- David Lyon
5/26 -- Delaware Croquet Club Invitational (doubles)/Wilmington, DE -- Tom Hughes & Rufus Bayard
05/31 -- Mad Dog Shootout/Lenexa, KS -- Dylan Goodwin

Sources: USCA, Croquet World, PBR Tour

First Shot: A New Home and Look

Blogger was fun, but pretty slow and ineffective, so I jumped ship and moved the site to Squarespace. I use the Squarespace service for many of my other sites, so I knew it was time to upgrade. The reality is a good croquet site like this deserves nothing but the best and this platform will allow for many features to be added. Expect new additions to roll out as they become available.

Anyway, enough about the site -- we're knee deep into croquet season and hopefully you've been able to get your share of mallet play in this year. We finally got an official tournament underway at my club that enjoyed some warm weather and a dry field. Standing around in wet shoes was getting a little old.

In addition, I've been playing some backyard Golf Croquet with friends and as I've mentioned before -- I'm hooked. Not sure if I can make it through the season without setting up an impromptu golf croquet event.

On the national scene, I'm finding more and more croquet sites that are offering blog type platforms. I think this is a key for growth as they generally offer RSS feeds. In fact, you'll see in the left column we're getting more and more sites into the network feed, which is about the most useful tool I can offer. Good stuff as it's becoming easier to stay up to date. So, it looks like Web 2.0 is catching on in the croquet world, and I'll feature some of the blog types site later this month in the club/links department.

That pretty much kicks things off for June. Hope you enjoy the site this month and I'll leave you with this link to a blog post on what is great about croquet.

Sincerely,
Dylan -- Publisher, Croquet Network

Backyard Croquet Drills: Long Split/Roll

This is my favorite drill to do when I feel like I need to work on my long game. Of course, the best thing to do is to just get as many balls and you can gather, pair them up and work on your long splits at a 25-40 foot range sort of rapid-fire, but this is a little more fun while incorporating some long wicket shots and short game work. If you don't yet have your split shot under control, take a look at the videos on the USCA Nine-wicket site.

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May Video: Mohamed Nasr by Bob Kroeger



I find this video to be very interesting for two reasons:

-- The way he opens his feet during the huge back swing -- Notice during the slo-mo on the first shot that the mallet follows through all twisted, yet the shot is still successful

First Shot: Upside/Downside

Well, I'm finding out how difficult it is to manage a blog site, play some croquet, keep the grass under control and spend some time with the family. The downside is nearly another month without getting a post up, but we forge on.

The upside is I've got a couple of tournaments under my belt. The downside is they've both been wet and cold and dark.

The upside is I played and hosted my first team event for our local club -- Alumni Cup. The downside -- we lost to K-State. Oh well, the NC and Orange Bowl will have to satisfy me 'til next year.

The upside is my yard is starting to fill in. The downside is it seems like I spend more time mowing that playing.

The upside is it looks like I've wrangled an invite to play some six-wicket croquet on a real field. The downside -- there is none, you can't go wrong with that.

The true upside is that the weather is starting to warm up a bit in Kansas and it's time to "swing the wrenches."

Sincerely, Dylan, Publisher -- Croquet Network