Sticking it to wickets
The Pasadena Croquet Club hopes to spark interest in the sport with two days of events in Pasadena’s Central Park
By Carl Kozlowski 11/04/2010
Sports fans looking for the roar of a crowd and some athletic excitement can usually get their fix by watching the Lakers or Dodgers play. But this Saturday in Pasadena’s Central Park, South Pasadena resident Eric Sawyer will try to get their hearts racing with an entirely different kind of game.
Sawyer is a member of the Pasadena Croquet Club, which is sponsoring a free special two-day event on the sculpted lawns in the middle of the park that normally play host to informal lawn bowling matches. The club is bringing in national croquet champion Ben Rothman to face off against national golf croquet champion and South Pasadena resident Mohammad Kamal in a round of golf croquet that Sawyer hopes will spark a surge in interest in the game.
“In regular croquet, each person plays with two balls and you play against another person with two balls, and each ball has to go through every wicket, or hoop, in precise order,” says Sawyer. “It can’t be more different from golf croquet in terms of strategy and how you play. Golf croquet is like skins in golf –– the first ball that scores the hoop gets the point, and then players move to the next hoop. It’s less complicated to learn it, and the strategy is less complicated. It’s much more accessible for a beginning player because you hit the ball through the hoop, win a point and move on to the next one.”
While croquet has spread across much of the globe due to the past colonial influence of the British Empire, golf croquet was developed as an offshoot in Egypt. Aside from its faster pace, it also stirs excitement in fans by utilizing a move called the jump shot, in which players hit the ball with enough force and precision to make it jump over the other balls that stand between it and the wicket.
While Kamal was born in the US and currently lives in South Pasadena, he spent many of his formative years in his parents’ Egyptian homeland and mastered golf croquet while living there. His teenage team won the junior national championship, and he has since won the national championship here in the US in 1999, 2007 and 2009.
“The sport’s beauty is it could be played by any age,” says Kamal, a pathologist who practices in Pasadena. “My 11-year-old daughter has been playing since 8, and grandparents of my friends’ kids are 80 and play the game. That’s one thing unique about the game, and the other is that it’s a relaxing experience when you’re on the court. The combination of accuracy and tactics can give you a feeling of playing chess on grass.”
Kamal has never played Rothman in a match, but the two faced off in two practice games on Rothman’s home court in Palm Springs. Rothman won the first game, while Kamal won the second. Those close games are just one reason that Sawyer is excited to see how the matches play out on Saturday.
In addition, Sawyer notes that the Croquet Club will offer lessons in the sport on Sunday before hosting a tournament pitting teams composed of veterans and novices against each other. And just as Kamal notes that nearly any age can play the game, Sawyer notes that it also has the appeal of being a rare sport in which women and men can be evenly matched.
“My wife and I started playing in 2000 as a game we can play as a couple, and men and women can play equally because you don’t have to be faster or stronger,” says Sawyer, an administrative law judge for the state of California. “Most people play the backyard kind of croquet with coat hanger hoops, mallets and nine wickets. The progression to playing a six-wicket game is more difficult, but when people get better at it, this is the way they go.”
The Pasadena Croquet Club hosts “The Pasadena Playoff” between Ben Rothman and Mohammad Kamal at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, with croquet lessons and team tournament at 10 a.m. Sunday at the Pasadena Croquet Club, 275 S. Raymond Ave., Pasadena. Admission to both is free. Visit croquetworld.com/News/pasadena.asp.
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