Croquet Rules: Backyard Setup and How to Play

These croquet rules cover the classic nine-wicket backyard game most American families play on a summer lawn. You will learn how to set up a croquet course, the order of the colored balls, the path through the wickets, how bonus strokes and the croquet shot work, and how to win. The full rules of tournament croquet run to many pages, but simple backyard croquet rules fit on one screen, and that is what we give here, with the most popular house rules under Variations.

Quick rules

• Players take turns hitting their own ball with a mallet through a course of 9 wickets and 2 stakes, in a fixed order.
• Play goes in color order: blue, red, black, yellow (then green and orange in six-ball sets).
• Each turn is one stroke, plus bonus strokes you earn.
• Going through the correct wicket, or hitting the turning stake, earns 1 bonus stroke.
• Hitting another ball (a roquet) earns 2 bonus strokes.
• The course runs out to the turning stake and back: 14 wicket passages and 2 stakes.
• The first player or team to finish by hitting the home stake wins.

What you need

• A croquet set: 9 wickets (hoops), 2 stakes, 4 or 6 balls in different colors and a mallet for each player.
• A flat lawn, ideally 100 feet by 50 feet. Any rectangle about twice as long as it is wide works if you shrink the spacing.
• 2 to 6 players, playing alone or in teams of two.

How to set up croquet

The standard nine-wicket course is laid out in a double diamond. For a full-size 100 by 50 foot lawn:

1. Put the starting stake on the center line, about 6 feet in from one end. Put the turning stake in the same position at the other end.
2. Place wicket 1 about 6 feet in front of the starting stake, and wicket 2 about 6 feet beyond wicket 1, both on the center line. Do the same in front of the turning stake.
3. Place the center wicket in the exact middle of the lawn.
4. Place the four side wickets to form the two diamond points on each side: each one roughly level with the halfway point between wicket 2 and the center wicket, and set out toward the side boundaries.
5. Turn every wicket so the ball passes through it along the direction of play: the center-line wickets face the stakes, and the side wickets face the ends of the lawn.

For a smaller yard, shrink every distance by the same amount. Many players simply measure in mallet lengths. Distances for the side wickets vary between sets, so use the diagram that came with yours if you have one.

How to play

Starting

1. Decide teams. With four balls, blue and black usually play against red and yellow. With six balls, blue, black and green play against red, yellow and orange.
2. Play in the order of the colors on the stakes: blue, red, black, yellow, green, orange.
3. Each player places their ball halfway between the starting stake and wicket 1 (some groups use one mallet head from the wicket) and plays toward wicket 1.

The path through the wickets

1. Go through wicket 1 and wicket 2.
2. Go through the near side wicket on one side (most diagrams use the left on the way out), then the center wicket, then the far side wicket on the same side.
3. Go through the two wickets in front of the turning stake, then hit the turning stake.
4. Come home along the other side: back through the two far wickets, then the other side wicket, the center wicket again (in the opposite direction), the last side wicket, and wickets 2 and 1.
5. Hit the starting stake to finish. That makes 14 wicket points and 2 stake points.

Bonus strokes

1. Each turn begins with one stroke. Your turn ends when you run out of strokes.
2. Running your correct wicket (the ball must pass fully through) or hitting the turning stake earns 1 extra stroke.
3. Going through two wickets in one shot, or a wicket and the stake, earns 2 extra strokes.
4. Bonus strokes do not pile up. Two is the most you can have waiting.

The roquet and the croquet shot

1. If your ball hits another ball, that is a roquet. You earn 2 bonus strokes.
2. For the first bonus stroke, you may pick up your ball and place it touching the ball you hit, then strike your own ball so both move. This is the croquet shot. Some backyard players hold their ball steady under a foot to send the other ball far away; tournament rules do not allow the foot.
3. Instead of the croquet shot, you may take your 2 strokes from where your ball stopped, or place it one mallet head away from the hit ball.
4. You may roquet each other ball only once per turn, until you score your next wicket, which resets this.

Out of bounds

A ball that goes over the boundary is placed back on the lawn one mallet head inside the line, at the point where it went out.

Scoring

How to win

The first player, or the first team with all its balls, to complete the course and hit the finishing stake wins. In a timed game, the side with the most points when time runs out wins. Keep a running count on our scoreboard.

Variations

• Rover: a ball that has run every wicket may stay in play as a rover instead of finishing. It can hit other balls to help a teammate or hinder opponents, but cannot score. A rover is out of the game if anyone knocks it into the finishing stake.
• Poison ball: a popular backyard twist. A ball that has run all wickets but not hit the final stake becomes poison. If it hits another ball, that ball is out of the game. If a poison ball goes through a wicket or is hit into a stake, it is out.
• Six-wicket croquet: the official court game uses six wickets and one center stake, and its tactics revolve around long breaks built from roquets and croquet shots, closer to billiards than to backyard play.
• Golf croquet: every player plays the same wicket at once, and the first ball through scores. Fast and easy to learn.

Tips and strategy

• Grip low and swing like a pendulum, with the mallet between your feet or beside you. Smooth swings beat hard swings.
• Use the croquet shot to set up your next wicket. Send the opponent ball away and roll yours into position.
• Stay near your partner so you can roquet them for bonus strokes when you need them.
• Do not hurry through the course alone. A ball far ahead is easy to target once it turns rover or poison.

House rules to agree first

• Is the foot-on-ball croquet shot allowed?
• Rover, poison or neither?
• How far inside the boundary do out-of-bounds balls go?
• Which side of the double diamond you take first.

More lawn games for a garden party: kubb, cornhole, horseshoes and our full list of outdoor games.