Pour Le Sport: Polo and Croquet in Palm Beach

Hitting a small ball with a mallet and directing it to or through a goal -- for a score-- is the template for many competitive sports. Two of the oldest and most distinguished of these games, played in teams, are polo and croquet. The elegance of these historic sports, when played by masters, awaits residents and visitors to Palm Beach each winter – where of course it is eternal summer, balmy and welcoming to spectators.

Polo, the sport of princes, welcomed the finest players in the world at Palm Beach's International Polo Club for the Ylvisaker Cup Contest. Beautiful, well harnessed and well-trained polo ponies became a galloping, racing part of the ball- and-mallet equation, giving the game speed, height, ball loft, and breakneck competition.

Newport Seen watched a thundering match at the on a bucolic Saturday between the Lucchese Team and Mt. Brilliant. The Lucchese team featured Luis Escobar and Nic Roldan, while Mt. Brilliant had Mike Azzaro, all internatioanlly established tournment players, in a fast and competitive game. The Ylvisaker Cup in named in honor of William T. “Bill” Ylvisaker, a polo pioneer who founded Palm Beach Polo and Country Club in the late 1970s, bringing the sport to the forefront in Palm Beach County.

Watching the match were polo pony breeder and summer Newporter KSN and guest, artist Susan Andreison, tailgating and discussing the teams' potential and performance. There was the customary divot stomping of the field between the 3rd and 4th chukkers. A gentleman rode a Segway up and down the sidelines, and Palm Beach Daily News polo reporter Alex Webbe was there with his camera crew. Lucchese won the match, and a position in the tournament semifinals.

What a shot!

At PGA National Resort & Spa, the game of Croquet was played with precision, power,
and great finesse; it is also referred to as "chess on grass!" At the 23rd annual Peyton Ballenger Tournament, Newporter Robin Sweet (currently residing in Florida) was a pleasure to watch, and was well ahead when Newport Seen arrived on the first day of the tournament. On hand were Missy Diack, of Florida and New York, Tournament Chairperson, Johnny Osborn, Tournament Director and Director of Croquet at Donald Trump's Mar a Lago and former National Croquet Champion, former champion Bob Chilton of Dallas, Rosemary Faulconer, President of the Croquet Club at PGA National, Dana Weber, Director of Membership for PGA National, Johnny Mitchell, Houston, this year's and last year's PGA Tournament Champion with his "exclusive" Morford Mallet, and other competitors from around the US, Mexico and St Croix. Ms. Sweet defeated Monica Uhlhorn 14-11 in fourth flight singles, and played again in second flight doubles.

The pastoral, hard fought competitions were a mid-winter pleasure, replete with breakfast, lunch and dinners, plus an open bar!.

-- Linda Phillips

About the sports:

Polo is thought to have originated in China and Persia around 2,000 years ago. The name of the game may well come from the word “pholo” meaning 'ball' or 'ballgame' in the Balti language of Tibet. The first recorded game took place in 600BC between the Turkomans and Persians (the Turkomans won). The elegant sport is now played in 77 countries, and was an Olympic sport from 1900 to 1939 and has now been recognised again by the International Olympic Committee.

The game of Croquet arrived in Ireland about l850, possibly from France, where it was called “paille maille“ after a popuar game of the streets, but the name was anglicized to pall mall. It was only the similarity of equipment that linked pall mall to the more spatially complex and cerebral game of croquet Some histories suggest a common ancestor for golf and croquet in the Roman game of Paganica, in which participants hit a small leather ball with a curved stick, and aimed to strike designated trees.

Croquet appeared in America in approximately l859, when there was a first mention of a croquet lawn in Masschusetts. In l865, two slim books of rules launched the sport in the US. Newport became its home, and the game became fashionable, particularly with proper young ladies finding in it an irresistible opportunity for flirtation. Croquet was depicted in a painting of Winslow Homer in 1865, the game possibly having come to the artist’s attention in Newport, which he frequently visited. In literature, it has been mentioned in the works of George Eliot, Disraeli, Trollope, George Bernard Shaw, T.S. Eliot, Lewis Carrol, Tolstoy, Nabokov, Wodehouse, Hardy, and Saki. Louisa May Alcott and Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote of its appeal for the ladies.