Coming soon: Murray Tinker's croquet visualiser

Murray Tinker only wanted to make better videos. Then, in his own words, he "got carried away."

Murray is club captain at Caloundra Mallet Sports Club. In 2017 he won the Australian Golf Croquet Men's Singles. We have told the story of the champion and his title on its own. Read the profile

What Murray has made is a set of free croquet visualisers that run in a web browser. One menu opens three versions: golf croquet, association croquet and gate ball.

You start by dragging the balls onto the lawn. A line shows where the shot will go, and you set its strength as a percentage. A shot across the lawn is 80%, and a shot the length of the lawn is 100%. Then you play the shot out and watch.

A ghost ball shows where each ball will go after one strikes another. Snooker players will know the idea. Murray points out that balls usually part at a right angle. On a real croquet lawn, though, the grass, the wind and the slopes mean they rarely make a perfect one.

The part coaches may like best is the drawing. You can draw arrows, lines and circles on the lawn, or put a mark where you want a ball to finish. You can then record a sequence of shots and play it back slowly, at up to 3 seconds a shot. That gives a coach time to stop and talk through each one.

Gate ball, set up with all ten balls, the three gates and the centre pole.

The 3D version, still taking shape.

The gate ball version is a court 20 by 15 metres, drawn to scale. It has the three gates, the centre goal pole and all ten balls. Gate ball is a team game that began in Japan.

Murray is also building a 3D version. Its lawn can be turned and seen from any angle.

Gemini AI helped with the building. The croquet knowledge that went into the rest is Murray's own.

The tools are still in development. Murray refines them almost daily, adding features as he goes. Hoopla will bring you updates and point you to the tools when they are ready for everyone.