GOLF CROQUET: John chips away at his sport

It is one thing to have the necessary ``natural'' attributes in sport.
It is another to harbour a passion to enhance one's chosen code through no ulterior motive.
John Little is one of those rare species who derives not only immense pleasure from playing golf croquet, but also a sense of gratification that goes beyond the confines of the immaculate greens and hoops of the Marewa Croquet Club.
When the retired viticulturalist from Meeanee, Napier, decided to play the game about a year ago, he decided to take up the challenge of making his own mallets.
``Rather than buy one, I thought there's lots of wood around so I'll make use of it to make one,'' the 71-year-old tells SportToday before the Marewa club's open day today.
Having first used the club's mallets, Little delighted in the knowledge that he didn't need to adhere to any strict rules in constructing a mallet.
``I just had to make sure both sides of the mallet (head) must be the same in size. There are no length or weight standards.''
His first effort stemmed from an old matai wood doorstep.
``It was as old as me when it was first used for building the doorstep, of course,'' he said with a laugh.
``I also used the butt length of a surfcasting rod which is lightweight. It's (the mallet) now hanging up in the shed at home looking worse for wear.''
Little's fertile mind screamed for further adventure when one day he helped chop down a friend's grapefruit tree.
``Grapefruit is slow growing so it's dense as wood and I had it sitting in the firewood shed so it was quite unique in that sense,'' he says of an experiment that yielded a mallet for him and wife Dianne.
Not satisfied, he let his nimble fingers loose on native lumps of timber, such as rewarewa and Australian hardwood jarrah.
``I drilled the head of the mallet and filled it with lead to give it more weight,'' says Little, whose equipment boasts 40 pieces when compared to the mass-produced commercial variety that has only 12.
``I give mine extra protection because the head shots can be very punishing. I put an inlay aluminium band around it too.''
He now has close to a dozen home-made mallets which also caught the eye of an avid player in Thames, where his brother and his partner live and compete.
``Someone saw it there and wanted to buy it from me come hell or high water so I sold it to him,'' says Little.
He is in the throes of crafting mallets No 10 and No 11 for his brother and his partner.
``You see, I believe it's a bit like never getting the perfect boat or house. You can never have the perfect mallet either.''
Okay, so how good is Little as a player?
He is an eight handicapper, while Dianne is nine _ 12 is the highest handicap in golf croquet with scratch (zero) the level to aspire to.
Admitting the only resemblance between golf croquet and golf is the name, Little says he and Dianne picked up a mallet because she wanted to play some form of sport regularly.
``We took up bowls quite seriously before that and enjoyed it, but we just enjoyed golf croquet more,'' says Little who settled in Hawke's Bay in 1973 from Taumarunui and has never thought of going anywhere else since.
``There's the social aspect of the game too. At 71 I'm in my middle age, so it's just a great place to be.''
He is chipping away at his handicap but acknowledges playing association croquet (the longer version) will require three to five days a week but they haven't ruled it out.
``It sounds like it's some kind of stupid game where you smack a ball to a hoop using a mallet but there's more to it.''