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Mallethead: Questions for Croquet

1. Where Is Our Golf Croquet World Team Championship?
Start with four regions -- North America, British Isles, Africa and Oceania. Four tests -- Canada vs U.S., U.K. vs Ireland, Egypt vs South Africa, Australia vs New Zealand. The following year winners advance to final four hosted by a predetermined region winner.

2. In the association game -- score a hoop, go out of bounds and continue your turn. Really?
I thought it needed to be more challenging.

3. Where is the clock and scoreboard?
Does a non-croquet player spectator have any chance at all of understanding a game if they can’t identify with what is a standard in sports?

4. Where is the world’s only true croquet arena?
Again from the spectator perspective  -- in all of this time, there hasn’t been one individual wealthy enough to just step up and say, I’m going to build a really nice 1,000 seat arena perfectly suited for viewing a croquet game?

5. Does it really matter if it wiggles?
I’ll leave this one open for interpretation.

6. Do you really think that a bonus shot should be awarded for hoop one/rover and seven/one-back in nine-wicket?
Taking that bonus shot away might incorporate an interesting opening and an additional mid-game set* after hitting the first stake. Not that interactivity is too much of a problem on the longer grass, but could it allow the game to move to shorter grass? Or maybe it’s two/penult and six/two-back.

7. Why is the boundary rule different for U.S. six-wicket and nine-wicket?
The immediate answer will be that long grass is slower … so it provides better defense to have a tighter boundary in nine-wicket. Still, it is confusing little inconsistency between the two games.

8. For the GC spectator -- is a best of three (five) really more interesting than one 19-point game?
Maybe for future generations, but I doubt right now that you can get a casual fan to watch a seven-hour best-of-five.

9. Is there really a reason to run the rover wicket the opposite way in U.S. rules, other than just making it different from association?
Open for comments.

Fighting the system since 2011 -- MHD

*Potentially dividing the game into four sections as opposed to the two that U.S. rules and Association can fall into.