NATIONAL CROQUET MUSEUM

Mohammad Kamal is known to many as the “Father of Golf Croquet” in the United States. Arguably the first great golf croquet (GC) player in this country, he was a pioneer of GC in the US before it became popular. Although many croquet players know him from his superior level of GC play, many more have come to know him through his countless contributions to GC in this country…as a club builder, promoter, teacher, ambassador and tireless advocate of this sport. In that sense, the current popularity of GC in the US can be traced back to his efforts.

For more than 20 years, he has been a dominant GC player in the United States. He won the inaugural US National GC Singles championship in 1999, and later won two other National Singles titles in 2007 and 2009. He also represented the US with distinction in the World Croquet Federation (WCF) GC World Championships in 1997, 2000, 2002, 2006, 2011 and 2017. In 2012, he was one of only four Americans selected for the US team participating in the inaugural WCF GC World Team Championship, an event many consider comparable to the MacRobertson Shield in Association Rules.

Finally, from 2000 to 2010, a time when GC play in the US was embryonic, Kamal held the following world Golf Croquet rankings: 7th in 2000; 10th in 2002; 14th in 2006; 19th in 2007 and 2009; and 20th in 2010. Very few Americans have ever held a top-20 ranking, and only two other Americans have ever been ranked in the top seven of GC in the world (Ben Rothman and Sherif Abdelwahab).

Perhaps more importantly, his countless contributions off the court have been crucial to the popularity of GC in the United States, which facilitated the growth of croquet in this country. For example, he was the president of the Beverly Hills Croquet Club (BHCC) from 1999-2000. In 2007, he and three others founded the Pasadena Croquet Club. He was a member of the WCF GC Rules Committee, which established the first codified set of GC Rules for worldwide use. When the USCA’s GC Committee was first established in approximately 2002, he served as a member for several years thereafter.

Kamal has worked hard to publicize the sport and to promote it regionally and nationally. He starred in “Kamal v. Rothman: the Pasadena Play-Off,” an exhibition GC event between him and Rothman that was made into a DVD and has been sold by the USCA to the public since 2011. While participating in several WCF GC championships, he wrote articles about them for Croquet World Online Magazine.

In 1999, he organized and ran the Beverly Hills International GC tournament, which was the first international GC event played in the North America. In 2000 and 2001, he coordinated top-ranked Egyptian players to play in major US events. In 2011, he ran the Palm Beach Polo Club GC event, which featured world-class GC players from throughout the world competing against top American croquet players. And in 2015, he put on a GC clinic in connection with an event in North Carolina, which focused on higher-level strategy for established players trying to make the US national team.

Kamal also promotes the game through a vast network of important social relationships. Examples are his long-standing friendships with Khalid Younis and Salah Hassan, both former GC world champions from Egypt, which inspired so many great Egyptian players to showcase their skills in this country. He also maintains close relationships with Stephen Mulliner, the current WCF Secretary-General, as well as former WCF Presidents Amir Ramsis Naguib, David Openshaw and Tony Hall.

Now 55 years old and living in South Pasadena, Calif., Kamal is married and has three adult children. He is a board-certified medical pathologist, licensed to practice in several states. He runs his own private pathology laboratory in Pasadena and serves as the medical director of several labs in California. He is widely known for his numerous efforts to serve his community. In response to the COVID-19 public health crisis, he developed with his team a coronavirus test and is currently offering it to the community. He was also a volunteer associate clinical professor of pathology at the University of California in Los Angeles. An active member of the USCA since 1991, he is also a member of the following croquet clubs: Pasadena Croquet Club; Mission Hills Croquet Club (Rancho Mirage); Gizera Club (Cairo, Egypt) and a country member of Dulwich Croquet Club (London, England). He is still an active croquet player and competitor in croquet tournaments.

Kamal has at all times exhibited exemplary sportsmanship and has been a consummate gentleman on and off the courts. His manner has reflected positively on the US and demonstrates that he is an excellent ambassador for the United States Croquet Hall of Fame.