SOUTHWEST HARBOR — It is a perfect, cloudless summer day.

From the wide verandah of the Claremont Hotel, one can see past the sloping apron of lawn, a scattering of small sailboats scudding about, taking advantage of the breeze as do a few seagulls wheeling overhead mewling to one another.

Thwock! The sharp sound of wood on wood interjects into the idyllic scene. There is metaphorical carnage afoot.

Croquet Doubles final
Teenagers Will and John Fox are being soundly beaten in the Claremont Classic Croquet Tournament by their own father, David Fox, and his partner, David Nelson.

The brothers, slumped in a couple of Adirondack chairs, watch helplessly as their dad and Mr. Nelson play cat and mouse with their black- and blue-colored balls from one end of the court to another.

Anyone who thinks croquet is about sending wooden balls through metal wickets in the fastest possible manner is dead wrong. It's not simply about slamming your enemy's ball into the pucker brush then heading for the next wicket. That would be a losing strategy.

A wise croquet player leaves the opponents' balls in strategic positions on the court so he or she can "feed" off them for extra shots or, in doubles, let their partner feed off them as they make their way through the wickets.

Once again, as the 90-minute time limit spun out, Mr. Fox, playing the color yellow, left his boys’ balls at opposite ends of the court and effectively "wired" both himself and his partner’s red ball, giving his younger son, John, virtually no play.

Despite his older brother Will's gentle encouragement, young John missed the difficult shot and watched in frustration as Mr. Nelson capitalized on the error.

While it was clear the older men had maturity and experience on their side, in this match, they actually had another important advantage from the get-go – they won the right to choose the red and yellow balls at the start of play. Those two balls always play second and fourth, giving them the automatic early advantage of having more balls on the court to hit.

Mr. Fox and Mr. Nelson managed to hold onto that advantage from start to finish and the two boys, except for a few flurries of brilliant catch-up play, never really managed to get fully into the game.

Singles final

Young Will Fox, who beat out Dave Nelson in the semifinals of the singles, ending the older man's two-year winning streak, had a stronger match in the singles final against Mark Hitchcock, who had overcome Doug Van Gorder in the semis.

But it seems, yet again, he was doomed from the start, losing the right to play red and yellow to his opponent.

With no other balls on the court to snack on, Will sailed through the first three wickets then buried himself in the far corner of the court, hiding from the red danger ball. As he had hoped, Mark followed him through the wickets and then missed his attempt to connect with blue. Will then brought his black ball into play, and in one of those impressive long shots that eluded him in the previous doubles match, he managed to hunt down and connect with the red ball in the far corner. He used his two extra shots to try to hide from the voracious yellow ball, which, from its first entry into the fray, had three balls scattered about the court upon which to fuel itself.

Alas for poor Will, Mark proved too formidable a foe and for the most part was able to track down the balls his young opponent tried to wire or hide on the margins of the court and use them as fodder.

Will made a brief comeback toward the end of the match. But then Mark, in a game defining moment, made the impossible shot from the far court where Will had sent his red ball. Mark's red ball eventually sailed through the final wicket as smoothly as a tugboat passing under a bridge and staked out his victory.

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