of five people who had nothing better to do. True pioneers who got
sick of playing video games, watching movies, or playing board
games. Yes, the true reason for playing Ironman Croquet was boredom.
The game begun simply as years of extreme croquet. Ben and I had for
years been playing a varient croquet at relatives homes, friends home,
and a vacation in Sun River. But this was a rare event and we decided to
start playing at our home. It started simply a shot around a tree or
shot near a corner, truly pedestrian works for sure. Ben and I grew
sick of this and it seemed the sport might die. But then it came out
of no where. The shot that truly begun the sport, The Deck Shot.
I convinced the legendary and now semi-retired Cole brothers (Nathan
and Kevin) to play. We decided we wanted something fun to start the
game on. We discussed our back deck and figured that would be a great
starting point for the game. It sounded simple enough as we placed the
ring near the end of the deck. I added the ever fun idea of if you fell
off the deck without going into the hole you had to start over. The shot
was difficult ( no blockers on the end of the deck) but we all had a
blast and this lead to the origins of the sport. In the summer of 1997,
Ironman Croquet was born.
We had many tournaments between the Cole brothers, Ben, and myself. I
even invented more shots like the Raspberry and Shed Happens to the
game. Then the sport was changed by The " Living Legend" Scott
Balthrop as he invented the Chair Shot. Then it truly became Ironman
as Scott and I invented the Sprinkler Shot. Which is more fun then a
barrel of monkeys. We had many great tourneys that year that were
surely forgotten but it impact was not.
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