Croquet at a Crossroads

Clad in various shades of white, the three men stood with mallets at their sides, the broad, close-cropped court in Roxbury Park spread out around them. They spoke a language known only to other initiates, talking about crush shots, stalking and deadness. The language of croquet.

Rhys Thomas, 44, had driven over the hill from Van Nuys to play on the only semipublic croquet court in Los Angeles, open to anyone with a $200-a-year membership in the Beverly Hills Croquet Club.

As Thomas carefully lined up his next shot, octogenarians Vern Benfer and Irv Hofstein--like Thomas, former presidents of the club--watched intently, ready to implement Plan A or Plan B, depending on whether Thomas’ ball cleared the wicket.

The hush on the court belied the unsettled state of croquet. It has been five years since the death of Jack Osborn, the charismatic Johnny Appleseed of croquet who predicted 15 years ago that 100,000 Americans would soon be playing the six-wicket form that he all but invented.

Today, the United States Croquet Assn.--founded by Osborn--has just 3,000 members. And croquet is at a crossroads. Aficionados such as the trio at Roxbury Park hope a revitalized association and a faster, streamlined version of the game, called golf croquet, will breathe new life into their beleaguered pastime.

“Croquet is in a static state now, bordering on stagnant, after making great strides in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s,” said Thomas, who heads the USCA committee that selects players for international competition.

Popular in Great Britain since the 1800s, croquet sprang up in France in the 15th century. Jack Osborn was the embodiment of American croquet for nearly 20 years.

He combined aspects of the backyard game and traditional six-wicket British, or international rules, croquet to create the six-wicket American version.

Some players muttered that Osborn thought he owned the sport, others clung to international rules, but most agreed that Osborn had put croquet on the American map.

Long before there was a USCA, Los Angeles had some of the most recognizable amateur croquet players in the world. Movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn, Harpo Marx and Tyrone Power were among the devotees with famous faces and custom-made mallets. Disdaining de rigueur whites, studio head Darryl F. Zanuck liked to play in his bathing suit, a cigar clenched between his teeth.

But American-rules croquet has never boomed locally. Today, the Beverly Hills club has 20 members, a number that waxes and wanes and was as low as eight a few years ago, according to Thomas. Recently, new members have been few, said current president 62-year-old Jim Butts, who joined after a decade of playing fierce games with his three sons at their Palos Verdes home.

“We got to be very competitive in the backyard,” Butts recalled. “When I was exposed to real croquet on the big lawn I got into it very quickly.”

He added that he is amazed that more Angelenos don’t play, given the quality and accessibility of the Westside court. Croquet is a fascinating, challenging game, he said, and it’s cheap.

“Compared to golf, the investment is very small,” he said. “A mallet costs $200 and that’s it--and white shorts.”

In Thomas’ view, the main reason croquet has a tiny following is that club versions of the game are so different from the breezy, smack-the-ball-through-the-wicket game of childhood.

The international and American games are so complicated that they put off many newcomers, he said.

“The average American who grew up playing backyard croquet comes out here and looks at the layout and says, ‘What’s that?’ ” Thomas said.

Until Osborn died of cancer in 1996 at age 69, he had been a tireless champion of American-rules croquet. Osborn played and promoted it in wealthy enclaves worldwide, arranging tournaments at such bastions of privilege as Palm Beach’s Breakers hotel.

The USCA had five clubs when he founded it in 1977. It now has just under 300.

But some boosters think croquet’s champagne image has hurt the game. “Jack was prone to create a kind of elitist organization,” Benfer said.

Dick Brackett, 52, who became USCA president earlier this year, said golf croquet is the way to democratize the game: “It’s an easy entry point.”

Unlike the tricky American and international games, golf croquet is swift and straight-forward. Players take turns trying to make each of six wickets.

How much simpler is it than the American game? The official USCA rule book devotes 50 pages to six-wicket croquet and explains golf croquet in four. Its biggest fans are Egyptians, who began playing it on courts left behind by British colonials and are now the best in the world.

The USCA is now promoting golf croquet on campuses. This year’s goal is to double its 10 or 12 collegiate programs.

The association has a new marketing plan. And it hopes that a $7-million croquet center being built in West Palm Beach by the nonprofit Croquet Foundation of America will give the sport a major lift. The USCA will have its offices in the center.

Brackett thinks that golf croquet generates enough excitement to become a televised sport. In golf croquet, he said, it can get pretty intense at a given wicket.

“There is an aspect of volley in this,” he said. “It’s interesting to see that part unfold and to see if the player can make the shot. And it’s got some billiards to it, and nine-ball seems to be on TV all the time.”

The media recently referred to Jacques Fournier, a gifted young player from Phoenix, as “the Tiger Woods of croquet.” In the past, Osborn turned up in the occasional newspaper story, Brackett said, “but up ‘til now, we haven’t had what you’d call personalities in the sport.”

For hard-core addicts, croquet is irresistible as is.

Television producer and croquet fanatic David Collins, 46, is so crazy about the game that when he was house-hunting a few years ago his one must-have was enough room for a backyard court.

He found it in Burbank Canyon, then bought the house next door so he could expand his court from one-quarter the standard club size to half-sized.

Collins said he hates the American version of the game, although he beat Osborn at it in his first tournament.

“We play international rules and golf croquet,” he said. “It’s fun, it’s interesting and it’s fast.”

There are too few public venues for croquet in Los Angeles, Collins said, and it’s hard to find a croquet pro for lessons. As for the new croquet center in Florida, he thinks it’s like carrying coals to Newcastle.

“They’re asking me to contribute money to this home of millionaires, and I can’t wrap my brain around it,” Collins said. “Instead of putting 12 courts in Palm Beach, they should put in 1,200 courts throughout the country.”