Mike, Many thanks for seeking out "Dan H." for me. It has been quite awhile since I have thought about Crolf but every time someone brings up the game of golf or croquet I am reminded. Most folks think I am making it up when I tell of the game. I really don't know much more than what I wrote to Bob. In the late 50s and into the early 60s our family vacationed at Little Point Sable Mich. - located just south of the lighthouse of the same name. It is the only place I have ever seen this game played. Variants with the same name appear, however, to have developed independently in other locations but of a later date.

• 1) A single mallet or club with one flat face and one face wedged (I don't know the angle but it was 45 deg or greater - perhaps as much as 60). There were two types of manufacture as I recall. A brass one with wooden handle and I believe a later model made of aluminum or alloy with a metal handle. Both had hand grip wrappings.
• 2) A rubber coated ball perhaps slightly smaller than a croquet ball but 3-4 times larger than a golf ball. As I recall the balls were dimpled like a golf ball but with larger indentations. The balls were hard but not "hard shelled" like golf balls.
• 3) There was a printed score card which may have included the rules of the game. All this stuff was custom made by someone, somewhere -- this is the mystery I would like to solve.

I am not sure how may holes there were. The first course laid out by Sam Wilson and Bob Anderson apparently had 9 holes, there seem to have been more added later I suppose up to 18. There were tee off stations but no tees to hold the ball. One created a small cone of dirt or sand to launch the ball from. There was a "fairway" of roughly mowed grass. The green consisted of a dish like pit perhaps 3-4 feet in diameter, 4-6 inches deep, in the middle of which was located the cup. I believe each cup had a flag. The object was to place the ball into the dish and with a bit of luck (no rain gullies etc.) the ball would roll into the cup. I don't recall if these cups were manufactures or simply cans of some sort. As I recall many a ball stopped at cup's edge. I think there was a par established for each hole. I can no longer judge how far it was from the tee to the cup but it would be measured in feet rather than yards. A guess would be in the 200-300 foot range. Hole-in-ones were possible. If there were specific "hazards" in the course I don't recall but I do know we used the wedge to get out of the sandy roads that ran near or through the course. If you got off the "fairway" you were in the bushes and in trouble. One of the residents trained his dog to retrieve crolf balls. People would mark their balls -- I think there was a finder's fee involved in the recovery.

A history of Little Point Sable was written by a long time residents Don and Ruth Mulvihill in 1993. In it they credit the invention of the game and the coining the word "crolf" to Sam and John Wilson. In this history they include copies of early homeowner association meeting records. As early as 1921 there is discussion of the "crolf" course and early tournaments. This apparently predates the John Wilson patent of the club on 4 August 1925 that shows up in "The Clubmakers Art" by Jeff Ellis (1997). I shall try to trace down the patent document for I would hope it address the ball also. Little Point Sable was (is) a summer community established in 1902 with families from all over the country going there. I suspect the game has lingered in many a memory over the years.