Start as a Club Player, End Up on the World Stage
Read the inspiring story of how Queensland player Mary McMahon turned a moment of inspiration into a journey to the international croquet stage.
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If I don’t look in the mirror I think I’m 30 again playing croquet!
A feature story on how former athletes find a new sense of purpose and rediscover their competitive fire through the strategic challenge of croquet.
Mary McMahon played squash for years. She was competitive, driven, and good at it. Then she retired, and the competition stopped.
The structure that had shaped her weeks for decades was just gone.
"I had no idea what that day was going to do for me and my life," Mary says.
"It brought back everything I had in my younger days, the days I was competing with squash.
And it's not until I look in the mirror of the morning do I wonder where that old lady came from."
It started when she watched a Queensland State Team player hit a perfect jump shot. "I thought he was a genius," she says. "I thought, 'Oh my God. Fancy being able to do that.'" Then she watched Peter Nicholson, a Queensland state player, in action. That did it.
"He'd see a hoop, he'd just go for it, and through it would go sailing through," she recalls. "And I made a commitment to myself then. I wanna get that good. I wanna be able to do what he can do.”
That's when the competitive side kicked back in.
She started practising. A lot. Croquet had gone from a social game to something she wanted to master.
"I have now a goal," she says. "I have a reason to practice."
"I've got everything now that I had then," she says.
For Mary, croquet gave back what retiring from squash took away. A goal, a reason to practise, and people watching to see how she goes.
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