Why are the Lawn Bowls Delivered by Club Players Predominantly Short?

Keep track of the numbers yourself or simply observe a typical head. Club level players deliver bowls, mostly finish short of the jack. Is there a reason for this? Is there a cure for it? 

Despite what the manufacturer of Aero Bowls says, no bowl travels in an arc that resembles the Sydney bridge! Lawn bowls have a substantial hook  towards the end of their  travel; the less bias the lawn bowl has, the less hook at the end, but a hook is still there.  Furthermore, viewing the jack from the mat, it is the last few yards of its proposed travel that are most difficult to visualize. As a consequence, our mind’s eye simplifies things and imagines that portion of the trip as just a smooth extension of the earlier part of the path. And we estimate too short!!! The hook shortens the the last bit of distance the bowl travels down the rink.

Is there a solution for average bowlers that a skip can implement? I think there is. Place your foot about 1meter behind the jack and ask your team members to bowl to your shoe as the target. Then those bowls will finish on average longer and the number of long bowls will more nearly equal the short bowls.

Both Being Polite and Getting Useful Practice Playing ‘Social’ Bowls: Delivering Short Jacks Near the Ditch

Successful lawn bowling clubs have regular roll ups where, because the teams are drawn randomly, players who only dabble at bowls can play with and against dedicated bowlers who most often compete in tournaments.

Some of these social-only bowlers may not be able to deliver a bowl with any kind of accuracy the full length of the rink. Indeed, it is only on the shortest jacks that they can usefully participate. Therefore more skilled bowlers who are also thoughtful and polite try to keep the jack length short; however, this means that this time, which could be practice time, is not well spent.

An answer for this situation is at hand but in my experience few avail it. Bring the mat up the rink to 2 meters short of the nearest hog line and deliver jacks to within 4 meters of the forward ditch. This will give jack lengths of between 23 and 25 meters. Furthermore, it will provide practice playing on a part of the rink and at a length that is used infrequently. Furthermore, the skilled player who practices for tournaments should play lead and thereby getting practice delivering the jack consistently over this shorter distance.

A useful skill is practiced while showing consideration for all the bowlers.

Place the Mat Carefully

 

One of my pet peeves is that most social lawn bowlers, not to mention a great many who play in small local tournaments, never move the mat. Real tyro bowlers may not even know that the mat is allowed to be moved! The result is that the area at the edge of the green near the ditches gets seriously worn, often to the point that the green slopes significantly towards the ditches; so much so that in some instances neither the jack nor any bowls can come to rest in that area. They may just roll off into the ditch. (This was true at the now defunct green of the Balaia Bowls Club in Portugal’s Algarve.)

Furthermore, positioning the mat with the mat line (the edge of the mat closest to the forward ditch) on the 2 metre line has a risk that you need to be aware of. If by accident the mat line is placed even a few millimetres short of that two metre distance and the jack is delivered and then the opposing side draws attention to this before the first bowl is delivered, then Rule 6.1.3 of The Laws of the Sport of Bowls Crystal Mark 4 states:

6.1.3 If, after the jack has been delivered but before the first bowl is delivered, a player or the marker finds that the mat line has not been positioned within the distances described in law 6.1.1, the opposing player must place the mat as described in law 6.1.1 and re-deliver the jack, making sure that it is centred, but the opposing player must not play first

That is to say, the side that is not in possession of the mat will get the mat and can deliver the jack that side’s preferred length!

What does this mean in practice for your own game? First thing- even if you, as a skip, strategically or tactically want long jacks, your lead should always place the mat line at least a few centimetres in front of the 2 metre mark on the rink. You don’t want to lose possession of the mat, precisely when you judge it most important to have it.

Second thing- when you are at the other end of the rink directing the play, you will not know the exact position of the mat. When the game is sufficiently important and the situation is sufficiently critical, you need to have taught another member of your team to call out the misplaced mat after the jack has been delivered but  before the first bowl has been delivered.

Notice that if your side draws attention to a mispositioned mat before the jack is delivered, all that happens is that the mat is placed properly and play continues. If attention to an improperly placed mat is only after the first bowl is rolled there is no penalty. It is only when the objection comes after the jack is rolled but before the first bowl is delivered that the other side gets to deliver the jack their chosen length.

WARNING: Do not exercise this rule in a social game or in any situation where there is no umpire. You will be correct calling upon this law but you will not be appreciated. Furthermore, in the absence of an experienced umpire your claim will just be ignored. 

Alternately, perhaps we could warn everyone about this rule. It might scare people into moving the mat up the green more often and give the grass a rest! 

 

Setting Up for Your First Bowl of an End at Lawn Bowls

 

Lawn Bowls is not like the winter sport of curling. The target is not a constant distance from the position one takes for each delivery. The target is not a bullseye painted on ice. The jack can be delivered any length between 23 and, on some rinks, 30 meters.

After you have delivered your first bowl in any end, your subsequent task is to correct line and weight based on that first result. Your first bowl in an end, however, has nothing to guide it except perhaps the fate of an opposition bowl played in front of you.

Of all the bowls you deliver this first bowl requires the most painstaking visualization of its contemplated path from your hand at the mat to the target position in the head. Because of this extra care visualizing, this first bowl of yours requires a bit more time preparation in your set up. 

Do not be rushed! I recommend at least twice tracing in your mind’s eye the contemplated path from hand to jack. The result, I predict, will be superior weight control.

A Tactic at Lawn Bowling Triples When Your Vice Can’t Get the Right Weight

The Greenbowler blog has regularly expressed a preference for playing your second-best player and, wishfully, your best draw bowler in the lead position. When this is the choice you have made, you probably have a lead who is also able to deliver a jack within a meter or two of where the skip asks.

A situation can sometimes arise when really no player on the rink is bowling particularly well, with the effect that each side is winning its share of ends. What you sense is holding you back from moving in front in the game is that your vice is all over the place with respect to weight control. You feel that if your vice could get some bowls decently close to the jack, it would make a consequential difference.

The skip will have been noticing how far down the rink these vice—delivered bowls predominantly finish, and when in possession of the mat, he/she can indicate to the lead to deliver the jack to that length. This is an instance of using jack length to support the member of your own team experiencing the most difficulty. Often, this required jack length will be an intermediate length because that is often the vice’s natural length.

This use of jack length contrasts with the more common ones I usually recommend, whereby I call for very short or very long jacks to try to interrupt superior play by the other side that is defeating, to that point, your best efforts. 

My Nomination for Best Bowls Game Ever

 

Great ends from 15-19

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs7peI7nTTc&t=1s

Watch the Grass an Opposing Lawn Bowler Takes in the First Two Ends

 

In Canada, whether in open tournaments or club rollups, there are no practice ends. Consequently, at the start of play, lead bowlers have no evidence upon which to assess the correct grass for their first deliveries in the first two ends. Even so, more often than not, I see the lead given the advantage of playing the second bowl, paying no attention to the line taken by that opponent who is required to play first. Sitting on the bench, chit-chatting with other bowlers, arranging the bowls in neat lines, polishing bowls, or wetting a bowl’s cloth; all of these are more frequently witnessed than a lead who conscientiously stands a few meters behind the bowler on the mat and carefully notes that opponent’s aim line and that bowl’s finishing position, to learn from it.

Yes— different makes of bowls have different biases, but no rule forbids one from learning the model and the manufacturer of your opponent’s bowls. If this can not be interpreted at your stage of experience, your skip can tell you whether the player whose position opposes yours has wider or narrower bowls than yours. Furthermore, on slow greens, like we too often encounter in Canada, the aim line will not vary a whole lot among makes. 

With proper attention, the lead, who bowls second, should more often than not, outperform with the first bowl in either of the first or second ends!  

A Bold Lawn Bowling Strategy

A sports strategy is a plan that can be made before a sports competition begins. It is not determined by the fine details of a particular match situation. This latter is the business of tactics.

I propose that a team ( let us consider a pairs team ) decide that when it has possession of the mat during a match, it will place the mat at the closer hog line and deliver a jack that gets centred on the forward T. 

The end is played tactically from that point on. If the end is won, the same strategy is repeated in the next end. If the end is lost, the side attempts to recover the mat and restart its strategy. The strategy tries to force the opponents to play a game with a fixed minimum jack length and a dead bowl line 2 meters behind the jack.

The idea upon which the strategy is based is that there will be an advantage in playing a game the details of which your side has practiced much more than the opposition and which has some features distinctly different from the standard bowls contest.

To be successful in the execution, the lead must be accomplished at rolling the jack reproducibly 21-23 meters. This seems like a tall order, but it is a precise challenge that can be practiced by borrowing a box of 16 jacks from the clubhouse.

Why should this strategy work?

 

In Canada, the minimum jack length is 21 meters; in most other countries, the minimum distance is 23 meters. First, few other teams practice bowling either 21 or 23-meter ends from a mat at the hog line.

According to bowls.co.uk, “At the beginning of the first end, the mat is placed lengthwise on the centre line of the rink, the back edge to be four feet from the ditch.” I can find no official evidence for this purported rule. There is no such requirement in the Laws of Sport of Bowls, Crystal Mark 4. Consequently, this is no longer required. The lead in the first end can place the mat anywhere from T to the closest hog line. The strategy proposed can be applied from end 1, so if the toss is won, you can take the mat and move it forward!

What is so different about playing this short game?

The re-spot position is identical to the initial spot for the jack. Putting the jack cleanly out of bounds will get it returned to the position from which it came!

Knocking the jack out of bounds is extremely unlikely; unless given a sharply glancing blow, the jack will end up live in the ditch. 

The team using this strategy should have learned to deliver the more accurate running bowl (since this is a more accurate delivery than a drive, with the best chance of ditching the jack), and this shot also provides the best chance to drive an opposing shot bowl into the ditch, where it will be dead. 

If the jack makes it to the ditch, the area available for the opposition to draw their own shot bowl is only half as big as usual. This is because the available area is only a semicircle around the jack. When the jack is in the ditch, placing a shot bowl behind the jack is not available.

 It is almost guaranteed that some deliveries will finish in the ditch as dead bowls. If the opposition does manage to deliver the shot bowl, your side has available the running shot to cancel it.

The probability of a rebounding bowl is much greater, and a rebounding toucher is live: 17.2.3.

The probability of a jack rebounding onto the rink is much higher, and a rebounding jack is live: 21.1.

Many more dispositions of bowls near the jack will constitute a target for a running shot because the depth of the head can be no more than 2 meters, so the gaps between bowls, or between a bowl and the jack, will be effectively smaller. A running shot is more likely to hit something.

Paul Foster bowls all his deliveries with the form required to deliver a runner; no backswing and a big forward step. In a famous open singles match, he came from behind in the last two ends by moving the mat up to the hog line and delivering a minimum length jack. You can see this starting at about the 1:17:02 mark in the online video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VEGkkHgZ6o