Golf-croquet ? the hidden gem of sports | Canterbury Sport | Surfing, Rugby, Soccer, Football, Cricket in Canterbury

Top Christchurch golf-croquet player Peter Couch is on a double mission ? to represent New Zealand at next year's world championships and to sell his sport.

He takes his first step towards the former next week when he competes at the inaugural national top 12 invitation tournament in New Plymouth, the first event at which the form of top players will be assessed leading up to next year's worlds in Hawkes Bay.

The 55-year-old Elmwood player is also keen to popularise golf-croquet, in which he is one of the few serious players in what's mainly a social sport in Christchurch.

Golf-croquet is a bit like croquet's version of one-day cricket.

"It's quick, you're involved all the time, and it's very tactical," he said.

But it was not as skilful as croquet, he said.

While croquet was one of the hardest sports to learn, players could learn the basics of golf-croquet in 10min, he pointed out. Games last only 30 or 40 minutes.

"So you can easily fit in seven or eight in a day, or come down in an evening for three or four games," he said. "It's so much better for people with limited time."

It was also a more tactical game because the balls had to be played in a specific order.

"Association (conventional) croquet is like snooker ? you're either up at the table or sitting down. In golf-croquet you're playing all the time."

It was the "hidden gem" of sports, he said. "If more people knew about it, they would play it."

Golf-croquet was more social than croquet, even though it was very competitive, and it had grown rapidly in New Zealand in the last five years, particularly in some areas, said Couch.

One is New Plymouth, which hosts next week's invitation tournament.

New Zealand hosts the world championships from March 4 to 12 in Hawkes Bay next year with teams from at least 10 countries, and the New Plymouth tournament is the first at which form will be assessed in the build-up to naming a team for the worlds.

A New Zealand player, Denis Bulloch, was runner-up at last year's worlds.

Couch represented New Zealand twice in conventional croquet, finishing third in an international tournament in Sonoma, California, before concentrating on golf-croquet. At his first New Zealand championship two years ago, he won the doubles and was runner-up in the singles.

He can safely claim no one in Christchurch devotes more time to croquet.

Since he retired from the air force, in which he was an education officer, in 1990, he's worked making and repairing mallets ? the only mallet maker in Christchurch.