Crolf

Crolf, in case you wondered, is

"a beautifully simple game that can be played by everyone, in any garden where a ball will roll. Hand-made in England the game comes with an easy to wheel trolley and includes 4 hammers, 4 wooden balls, 6 hools [the three way hoops that you shoot through], 6 pins, 4 markers, full instructions, a set of Crolf Laws [only 9 in all], and, of course, a brolly to shade your summer drinks."

Why do I love thee, Crolf? Let me count the ways (I get three):

1. I love thine Hools - thine three-way croquettish golf hole/hoops that seem so much more approachable from so many more directions, and yet so easy to place or displace.
2. I love the Junkyard Sports-likeness of thine silliness - the silliness of the name, the joyous absurdity of trying to play something like lawn croquet in someplace very unlike a flat, well-manicured lawn.
3. I love how thou dost manifest the spirit of playfulness and taketh it beyond the confines of officialdom and tournamentality.

Not that this is the first time there has been something golf/croquet-like. Apparently, there was something Crolfish patented as early as 1925. And Dick Schafer reports on yet another version of Crolf - one that might be called "Snow Crolf" or perhaps "Snolf."

But what and where is Crolf? Well, there's a course in Custer, South Dakota, at the Americas Best Value Inn. A Miniature Crolf course, no less or more, for yet further Crolfish contemplation.

via Roger Greenaway


from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith