Celebrating 90 years of Golf Croquet

The Croquet Gazette was the first to report that the Council meeting on 14^th December 1933, the rules for Golf Croquet had been approved and will “be embodied in the Laws of Croquet and Regulations for Official Tournaments and C.A. Year Book for 1934″

An online publication croquetworld.com reports that “England’s Ray Hall was the first to come up with a surprisingly comprehensive history of the hottest thing to hit the sport of croquet since the Willis Setting.”  The sport that was once played as a garden game has now become a fast paced sport played by more than 20,000 players in over 40 countries around the world.

The rules have encountered many significant changes along the way, these days allowing for jump shots which are often demonstrated with perfection by players using carbon fibre mallets, through hoops with a 32^nd of an inch clearance.

The World Team Championship of Golf Croquet will be hosted in Australia in 2025, this will be the 4^th contested ‘World Cup’ of Golf Croquet and will be contested by the following eight countries:

New Zealand (Holders)
Australia
Egypt
England
Ireland
South Africa
Spain
USA

The current World Champion, Matthew Essick from USA, is 24 and has played Association Croquet since he was a child, but only played in his first Golf Croquet World Championship in 2022 which he then went on to win.

In a recent interview he praised Croquet for being not just an exciting and competitive sport to play, “The unity within the community is different than in other sports”, and playing in the events is not just about competition, but about encouraging other players to succeed as well.