CROQUET NEWS:  Luxurious Napa Valley Resort is Great Place to Learn Croquet

3 May 2009
Meadowood Resort, St. Helena, California, USA
story by Don Hammonds in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
photo by Meadowood Resort

Croquet is among the activities at family-friendly Meadowood resort in California's Napa Valley.

For natural beauty and plenty of sunshine, it's hard to beat Napa Valley, home of some of the country's most famous wines and vineyards. While you're there, check out Meadowood Resort, a gracious, low-key complex that offers everything you'd want from family-friendly activities to tennis, swimming and croquet.

Croquet? That backyard game with colorful balls and mallets and maddening little wire wickets that never quite line up right? Uh-oh!

Yep — croquet.

The lawn sport that has been an English staple since the 1860s is part of the fun at this resort that offers two full-size, world-champion-caliber croquet lawns.

I was assured the game would be a blast.

"I bet," I said, laughing, as I thought about the last time I engaged in an athletic competition — a softball game in which one of my hits left the poor pitcher singing a few notes higher for a while. They didn't call me "The Executioner" after that for nothing. Hope they've got an ambulance standing by here!

Fortunately, for novice croquet players like me, Meadowood has an instructor. The rules are simple — the team or player hits balls with a mallet through a series of wickets placed in the lawn in the shape of a figure 8. The team or player to finish the tour first wins.

Jerry Stark was one of the friendliest and funniest instructors I've ever worked with, despite my hilariously inept croquet style.

Poor soul. There's a crown awaiting him at St. Peter's gate for putting up with the likes of me. (At least I managed to keep the balls on the ground.)

Soon it was time to start the match, and my croquet partner, John DiVaio, offered some words of encouragement. We did the "fist bump," vowed to whip our opponents and got down to business.

Surprisingly, I was able to position myself reasonably well on the course, without going out of bounds — too much. I even got a few balls through the wickets, to the cheers of John and even our charitable opponents.

This game is, of course, tres gentil, so much so that I half expected at each wicket there would be a waiter with a cold drink and a butler with an umbrella to shield us from the sun.

But in the end, the score wasn't even close — but both my croquet partner and I were pretty happy about our game despite our loss.

Nestled in a 250-acre valley, Meadowood also offers seven tennis courts, hiking trails, a health spa and an interesting variety of architectural styles and decor among its 85 guest rooms, suites and cottages.

Room rates start at $425 during the spring but vary by season. The cottages were at once rustic yet contemporary, with lovely bungalow-style furnishings and interior design. I came away with more than a few ideas for fixing up my own 100-year-old Craftsman-style house in Swissvale.

The food was fabulous. I ate mostly at the Grill, a beautiful facility with huge windows and a patio overlooking rolling hills and a golf course.

Don't miss the English muffins for breakfast, the best I've had anywhere. My breakfast was the Grill's St. Helena omelet, with spinach, smoked salmon and cream cheese — out of this world.

But what really impressed me at Meadowood was the level of service. Immediately upon checking in, I was asked which newspapers I wanted delivered to my room. My reply, being a newspaper junkie, was: "All of them." It was no problem.

Because the resort is so huge, the staff drives you around in golf carts. There never was more than a minute or two wait before someone arrived at my door.