United States Croquet Association of croquet, including information on starting a club and on local contacts to instruct and advise you. They will also gladly offer advice, print resources, and consulting on lawn construction and maintenance. In 1977, Jack Osborn organized five Eastern clubs (including the Westhampton Mallet Club, Croquet Club of Bermuda, Green Gables Croquet Club, New York Croquet Club, and Palm Beach Croquet Club) into the United States Croquet Association (USCA), and wrote a new rule book for an American version of the six-wicket sport called American Rules croquet. It was Jack Osborn's vision, marketing savvy, energy, and sheer dogged determination that
Croquet is struck with a mallet through an iron ring". However, there is no evidence that pall-mall involved the croquet stroke which is the distinguishing characteristic of the modern game. The second theory is that the rules of the modern game of croquet arrived from Ireland during the 1850s, perhaps after being brought there from Brittany where a similar game was played on the beaches. Regular contact between Ireland and France had continued since the Norman invasion of Ireland in 1169. By no later than the early 15th century, the game " (itself ancestral to pall-mall and perhaps to indoor billiards)