The croquet championship of the United Kingdom has just been won and lost at Roehampton, and the present writer went over to the attractive grounds at Barnes to witness the final, and to endeavour to gain therefrom, if at all possible, some lessons for the billiard table.
As was pointed out a month or two ago in an article published in The Billiard Monthly, the affinities between billiards and croquet are strong, and there is little doubt that billiards was originally played on lawns with a sort of mace, and that both games have a similar origin.
The outstanding feature in croquet is position play, and in this connection a singular circumstance may be noted. In billiards, ordinary players rarely, and lady players scarcely ever, play primarily for position. The immediate score is everything. In croquet, on the other hand, the veriest novice grasps at the outset the vital necessity of position play, and almost instinctively drops into it. Indeed, one may venture to assert that the same person who, at billiards, would smash up a break opening, would play the necessary gentle position stroke at croquet as a matter of course, and where equally failing to apply double strength for position purposes at billiards would not dream of neglecting this essential aid to continuance at croquet.
This being so—and there can be little doubt of the fact— a few lines may be usefully devoted to recalling what position play in croquet actually is, as revealed by the play in the recent championship match. And championship at croquet, be it noted, is all amateur. There is no such thing as professional croquet. If there were, certain strokes might, as in billiards, have to be controlled, otherwise the professional exponent would frequently peg out in a single turn, so simple, when scientifically played—and with the push in, as understood at billiards—is the game.
In croquet, as in billiards, the game opens with safety misses, the first player sending his ball to the extreme transverse corner, and the second player a few yards along the court to the left of the starting hoop. Then the first player sends his second ball to keep the first one near company in a favourable position, and the second player, let us suppose, goes courageously for the hoop, fails to negotiate it, and sticks there. It is now that the game really begins. The first player has an easy roquet on to his own ball, and may possibly be able to rush No. 2 to the centre of the ground with the same stroke. If so, he takes croquet from there gently down to the starting hook, and proceeds to toy with his adversary's No. 2 ball much as a cat doth with a mouse. In the roquet he is careful to send it back nicely behind the hoop, so as to get elbow room for his first position shot, which is a gentle stun, sending the croqueted ball well forward whilst his own remains just behind the hoop. When the hoop is run he turns his attention to his opponent's No. 1 ball, which he croquets up to No. 3 hoop, and then proceeds to use the other, which is quietly awaiting him at No. 2 hoop. This hoop he runs so as to get below the nursed ball, and when he roquets this up to No. 3 hoop, where it has the further company of the adversary's No. 1, the rest—especially remembering that his own second ball is lying in the centre of the ground awaiting contingencies—is simple. Practically all that has to be done is to provide for a hoop or two hoops ahead, as well as for the immediate hoop, just as in billiards the great essential is to provide for a stroke or two strokes ahead, as well as for the immediate stroke.
Not only is the position principle identical in the two games, but the methods by which obedience on the part of the balls is enforced are also practically the same. The split stroke in croquet is neither more nor less than the stroke which, in billiards, sends the object ball in one given direction after impact and the cue ball in another.
True, the stroke in croquet is easier, as it is neither more nor less than the "plant" stroke.