Croquet

Croquet

Croquet is a fun game where players hit balls through hoops using a mallet. People play this game on grass courts. You can use wooden, plastic, or composite balls, and the hoops are sometimes called "wickets" in the United States.

The sport started in England in the 1860s, but games like it have been around since the late Middle Ages. Today, many countries enjoy different versions of croquet. Top players come from places like England, Australia, Spain, Egypt, South Africa, and the United States.

Croquet is a sport that both men and women can play. In croquet, players take turns hitting balls through hoops to score points. The game ends when a player or team reaches a set number of points. There are several ways to play croquet, with different rules and layouts. All players, no matter their age or gender, can compete together.

!Leon Wyczółkowski, A Game of Croquet (1892–1895), National Museum, Warsaw

Croquet has appeared in many paintings, books, and songs. Famous artists like Winslow Homer, Édouard Manet, and Norman Rockwell have painted people playing croquet. In Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland[/w/12], the game is played with unusual items like a hedgehog as a ball and a flamingo as a mallet.

There are croquet clubs all over the world. In the United States, about 200 clubs belong to the United States Croquet Association. Many colleges have croquet clubs too. In England and Wales, over 200 clubs are part of Croquet England. Spain has 37 croquet clubs, and New Zealand has 112 clubs.