The Ponte Vedra Croquet Club has been around for nearly a decade and continues to be one of leading places in the area where the local community can play the sport of croquet.
The club was founded by John Curington and is located off of State Road A1A at 100 Mosquito Control Road in Ponte Vedra Beach.
“I’ve been involved with croquet for about 40 years, and like most Americans I played as a kid in what I call ‘giggle croquet,’ but I became aware of croquet as a serious sport in about 1980 when I was working in San Marco,” Curington said. “Then in the early ‘90’s I started playing seriously but the only place I could play would be to got to tournaments out of town.”
When he moved back to the Beaches area during that time he knew that there was a void for those interested in playing croquet locally as he was.
“I tried to get the City of Jacksonville Beach, the various country clubs and St. Johns County Parks and Recreation to help along with this and build a facility, but I was unsuccessful,” Curington said.
However, that did not stop him from always striving and searching for the perfect spot to have a croquet facility, and his love of the game continued to grow during that time as well, including when he moved down to West Palm Beach for a year to help build the National Croquet Center.
He continued to play tournaments and eventually moved to Ponte Vedra and that is when he found out about the current land where the Ponte Vedra Croquet Club now sits, which used to be the site of the Ponte Vedra station for the Mosquito Control District, which closed around 2007 due to their master plan to consolidate the three sub stations they had into one main facility.
That decision created an opening which Curington was quick to act upon and in 2011 he began attending their meetings.
“Long story short, I made a proposal, and we started negotiating,” Curington said. “In the end it went from a lease to a purchase in 2013 and I started to work with some helpers in building the place.” The facility features an outdoor deck that overlooks three courts on the north lawn and a south lawn area that boasts four courts. Each court is setup with six wickets and is able to play three different games of croquet, although the club primarily plays what is known as “one-shot croquet.”
Inside the clubhouse there are restrooms and a lounge area, and there is a pavilion, adjacent to the south lawn, which provides a rustic space that offers shade and comfortable seating.
There are enough courts to practice on and to have individual or small group instruction without interfering with ongoing games.
According to Curington, it has been quite the journey, and the club has seen growth over the years, but now he has aspirations of growing the club and the game even more as he looks to the future.
Especially with the continued popularity of a sport such as pickleball, which Curington believes croquet offers many of the same functions and qualities.
According to Curington, croquet is considered as a children’s game by many in America, but that is far from the contrary, and a message he is trying to send to the rest of the community.
“It’s a very sociable game, and it’s very much inter-generational, so any age can play,” Curington said. “In fact, the world championship was just won by an American, Blake Fields from Mission Hills, California, and he’s only 18 years old.”
Curington offers free introductory croquet classes at the club Wednesday and Saturdays at 9:30 a.m.
“I can teach you the game in five minutes, so you can start playing right away,” Curington said. “They’ll have questions, but I want to get them out there playing as quickly as possible, so that they can experience it.”
The club is also available to host private events of all kinds for groups or organizations. For more information about the club go to www.pontevedracroquetclub.com or by emailing pvccheather@gmail.com.
