Extreme Croquet - Game Setup

Game Setup

A typical extreme croquet game starts with location scouting, searching for terrain that might present interesting and novel challenges such as trees, roots, hills, sand, mud, or moving or still water. The wickets are normally set up according to the "British" figure-eight standard well known to Americans, but often deviate somewhat to take best advantage of the location. Play proceeds following the usual croquet rules, with alterations generally designed to handle circumstances not found in the garden game. An unquantifiable resilience and spirit characterizes the play of the game, replacing the calm and sophistication commonly associated with tournament play.

A certain amount of experimentation and development has occurred with the equipment used to play. Traditional croquet sets typically do not stand up well to the rigors of "extreme croquet", and various methods have been used to strengthen the mallets, balls, and even the wickets. This has led to the origin of mallets with beveled faces to add "loft" to the ball, and two-story wickets.

Some say the variation had its origins in 1920s America, while others claim the extreme version is simply retroactive, appealing to croquet's supposed origin as a 15th century French shepherd pastime. Today, many clubs or societies keep track of one another by their websites. Notable among these is the Connecticut Extreme Croquet Society, for its storied history as well as its lucrative domain name http://www.extremecroquet.org. Due to these singularities, the Connecticut group is often singled out for media attention as various outlets hear of this purportedly new phenomenon.