Photo by Kirsten Shultz 

Croquet, you say?

Bring your whites to this lawn game

By Michael Ames

By most accounts, Howard Knight would be called a lawn perfectionist.

He is never satisfied with his pitch.

“My lawn is not a croquet lawn,” he laments. “The grass is too long,” he worries.

For the past 22 summers, Knight and the same three friends have gathered for Sunday afternoon croquet games on the front lawn of his Hailey home.

To the average yard game enthusiast, Knight’s croquet court, an 80- by 140-foot rectangle, seems perfectly manicured. In the world of professional yard games, however, Knight is correct. His court measures roughly half the size of international regulation and his grass is a phony imposter, at best.

Despite its relative puniness, Knight does pamper his croquet arena. The grass is kept at a 1-inch maximum. He sands it for consistency of roll, will moisten it just prior to a game and has at times used a heavy roller for smoothness.

He claims to be only a passing aficionado, saying his interest in the sport is “really just whimsy” and that the “social aspects are more important than the game itself.”

Still, the foursome—Knight, Charley Johnson, Burr Smith, and Alex Harakay—do their best to uphold the proper “formality of the game,” according to Knight.

The dress code is an attempt at the all whites tradition of lawn game attire, “but Hawaiian shirts do slip in,” he confesses.

The four amuse themselves by trying to dress appropriately. However, “finding a pair of perfectly white lawn pants is pretty difficult,” Knight says.

And if you’re thinking of joining Knight’s game without any experience, think again.

“An amateur walking off the street grinds the game to a halt,” he says. Invite a novice and the next thing you know, “you’re wet nursing them through all the shots.”

Backyard beginners should not feel intimidated to start their own grassy hobby, though. Knight’s love affair with his lawn was kindled long ago. This relationship has had time to grow.

After all, Knight, too, was a neophyte who started by dabbling in all sorts of games. His lawn has seen volleyball and even some touch football games, but the latter “usually got a bit rough after a few drinks.”

Knight and company have settled on a basic, Double Diamond family style version of croquet, an aptly named version where players hit their balls through metal hoops, the path of which forms a giant, longitudinal double diamond.

Throughout the years, the yard has attracted more than just the regular players, and it wasn’t necessarily the allure of the double diamond game that drew them. Rather, it was the atmosphere of a freewheeling summer afternoon, spent not in an office, but with gin and tonic in one hand and croquet mallet in the other.

“People would ditch work to play,” he recalls fondly.

On one memorably lazy afternoon, Knight came home from work to find a police car parked in his driveway. His concern quickly dissolved when he realized that a deputy sheriff had simply taken some work time to play a game of croquet.

Though not technically a civic service, summer’s lawn game does offer a reliably entertaining diversion from normal routines.

Besides, where else can you wear whites and have this much fun? •