This reports covers the tactics during the Florida 'Golf Croquet' competition in 2002.

Norman Eatough sets the scene:

The tactics end-game in the final were illuminating: Salah Hassan was 5-6 down in the 5th and took a good position in front of rover, only to be removed to the west boundary by Khaled Younis. There followed 12 or 13 resounding removals of well-placed rover balls, all from at least 13 yards, some from 20-odd. Finally, with his yellow some 3 yards out in easy running position, Hassan jawsed his red, not wishing to give Younis' blue a preferential shot at hoop 13 from near the peg (blue had taken up a forward position for hoop 13).

The championship was lost on Hassan's final shot, despite it's being theoretically a very sound tactic: he blasted with red at Younis's black some six feet out on the playing side of rover, clearly wanting to remove it and ricochet off somewhere near hoop 13. Unfortunately, this intelligent shot failed, due no doubt to red's being jawsed: red hit black half way up and landed near the north boundary, black travelling only some 6 yards. Younis duly removed yellow with black and ran rover with blue from near the peg.

A fascinating tussle had come to a damp end from the one imperfect shot of the last 60 minutes or so.

Mohammad Kamal analyses the tactics

Golf croquet tactics in Egypt have many levels. In the competitive game, the first level is a baseline or a standard tactics that everyone knows and to translate it from Arabic it is called "Position, Hit and Hoop". This is basically taking a position, hit the opponent ball that plays before that position ball, and run the hoop with that position. This is comparable to 3 and 4 ball breaks in association. Everyone knows it and capable of doing it or at least attempting it. It is simple and straightforward. The next level is more complicated. It deals with more adversity and handles situations resulting from imperfect shots by both sides. For example what to do when your first ball at the hoop is not in a hoop running position. How to handle this if you play the second ball? Or if this is your first ball and you have to react to the second ball with the third. This level would also include some standards that most players would follow. So most Egyptian players would handle the situation I mentioned in my example similarly and some won't.

The next levels have players who excel in game ending tactics. They can change tactics to adapt to opponents and become creative at times to take advantage of opponent's weaknesses and to handle more adverse situations. The top-level tactics enables players to design a game plan that allows them to win even on a relatively off shooting day. Underline relatively. Not all Egyptians play at or even aware of these levels. In fact it has been discussed in the past few years that the number of players interested in high level golf croquet tactics is markedly decreasing as a result of the remarkable rise of shooting skills. It become like a cruise control when you shoot that well it becomes "Position, Hit and Hoop". There is an element of intimidation when you play against an Egyptian player who hits hard and appears to be hitting everything. Well the truth is, nobody is capable of hitting everything. But those of us who watched Walid Salah wining his first Egyptian National Championship in 1987 sure felt like he didn't miss anything.

As for hoop 12 in the final, I was not fortunate to watch the match, as I had to leave Florida early due to a family emergency. When I spoke to Salah and Khaled on the phone after the match, they described the situation to me. I will use the colours used by Stephen Mulliner assuming that they are correct. Red was in the jaws and was not in a perfect position. Salah feared that he might commit a crush if he tried to score the hoop. Because yellow had a good position, he decided to shoot at black, which would send it away (corner 2) but on the same shot red would go to or near hoop 13. This would have been an excellent shot. Unfortunately because red was in the jaws there was a slight dent in the ground, that he did not see, and led to slight elevation of the red ball. That resulted in black to be sent only to near the peg. Then eventually black made the easy shot of hitting yellow away. That's the story as it was told by both SH and KY.

The tactic of placing a ball south of 12 to rush a ball in the jaws after it runs the hoop is not valid in all cases. Reacting to such tactic is also more complicated than just placing a ball south of where the rushing ball would be expected as you mentioned. First, the ball that plays after hoop 12 is run, must go for a position. This is a cardinal rule (or used to be - I'll elaborate later). If the rushing ball is to be hit, the ball that plays before the ball in the jaws is the one that should hit it (example below).

1. Red in the jaws of 12.
2. If Black is not in position to jump 12 or drive red out, then it should take a position in front of 12 allowing enough space for back swing going to hoop 13 (Important to note that blacks position should not give yellow a shot by which yellow would go to hoop 13 off black).
3. Yellow goes south of 12 to rush red when it goes through 12.
4. Now blue can hit yellow away.

This ends the dilemma because red has to run the hoop otherwise black will jump. If blue can't hit yellow there are two options to handle the situation. The first option is to go north east of black to get ready to be rushed to hoop 13 after red runs hoop 12. If black succeeds, blue will have a hoop making position which forces yellow to abandon the rush and take a shot at blue. If it doesn't, blue will play before red.