Infiltrating the Greenwich Croquet Club

I stumbled upon the most amazing thing yesterday: REAL CROQUET.


We were leaving Bruce Park Playground in Greenwich, and rather than hop directly on the highway to go back to Stamford, I drove through Bruce Park to show it to my visiting sister and parents. Once we spotted the fancy green lawn and people in fancy white clothes playing what looked to be a very serious match, I pulled over to investigate.

“Is this a croquet league?” I asked a lady sitting off to the side.

I ended up doing an impromptu interview with the woman, Donna Dixon, who, in addition to being one of the top women croquet players in the US (she’s from Houston), was a great source of info.

She told me that some of the players were from California and Canada, and that the croquet match was run by the Greenwich Croquet Club. There are other tournaments in Locust Valley NY, Palm Beach FL, and California, but the Greenwich Invitational is known as being on of the best, both player-wise and for the social aspect.

“Where’s the wine?” I asked. Donna looked at me bemusedly, and I realized I was insulting her sport. “Oh- I guess you wouldn’t drink during a match, but I expected to see people sipping white wine at something like this.”

“Well, some of the younger players were drinking beer in the afternoon while they were playing yesterday, but we save that for later!”

Thank you Donna, for being so willing to talk to me!

You can see more of my photos after the jump. Or, click here to see last year's Greenwich Invitational photos for some good closeups of what the wickets look like.

You can also read this article about the tournament from the Greenwich Time (or it newstimes? I can't keep track of who owns what paper), or see the Greenwich Time's short blog entry about it. There's also a United States Croquet Association website.