Getting Weight Right: Standing on the Aim Line 2/3 of the Way to the Jack

I have discovered a way to avoid short bowling by my lawn bowling team members. I do not understand why it works but it does seem to work with a variety of different subjects.

To do it you must learn the correct aim line for the bowler you wish to assist. The easiest way to do this is to make some deliveries with that team member’s bowls and compare the draw with your own.

Then sand at a spot on that aim line, 2/3 of the way from the front of the mat to the jack, and ask the bowler on the mat to bowl at you. For some mysterious reason, the bowl gets delivered with weight appropriate to get it to the position of the jack!

I don’t know why this works but I can hypothesize. The bowler senses that at least a certain velocity is needed to take the bowl to you along the aim line without substantial bending away and that is quite a good approximation to the velocity required for the bowl to curve towards the center line and arrive at the jack. 

 That is to say, your request asks two things of the bowler:

1. Bowl along the proper aim line, and
2. Bowl with sufficient weight that the bowl does not curve away from me very much

These two demands actually indirectly define the perfect draw path. The bowl must start out on the required aim line and it must not curve to any substantial degree until it is 2/3 to 3/5 of the way down the rink!

If you adopt this methodology in a match the opposing skip may claim that your positioning is illegal and the rules require that you at all times stand behind the head. This is not correct. The applicable rule from The Laws of the Sport of Bowls Crystal Mark Fourth Edition is:

12.1.3  As soon as a bowl is delivered, a player who is controlling play from a position that is either level with or in front of the jack, must take their position as described in law 12.1.2.

12.1.2  Players at the head-end of the rink and who are not controlling play must stand: 

12.1.2.1 behind the jack if they are members of the team which is in possession of the rink; 

12.1.2.2 behind the jack and away from the head if they are members of the team which is not in  possession of the rink; 

12.1.2.3 on the surrounds of the green if the jack is in the ditch; or

12.1.2.4 well clear of the head if it is not possible to stand on the surrounds.

This means that once the bowl, whose play you are controlling, is released you are required to move immediately to a position behind the jack and then, once that bowl stops, away from the head. 

When You Need a Big End to Win a Set and You have the Last Bowl

 

I am not of set play at lawn bowls. Set play was devised to make the game more suitable for television broadcasting. When there is no such media necessity, I see no reason why we should abandon the traditional 21 up game.

But, if the authorities select set play and with repotting centered on the forward T of any jack out of bounds, then strategy should be directed to take advantage of these rules.

At set play, it doesn’t matter by how much you lose a set. When your side is behind by more than 1 point going into the last end you should play to do whatever is required to position yourself to win. If you fail it doesn’t matter by how much you lose.

Your object is to get a multiple in the end. To achieve that you need to retain the maximum number of ways this can happen.Having the last bowl in the final end is the better situation when you need a multiple to win or tie.

The opposition has the choice of mat position and can try for a preferred jack length. If the mat is taken up the rink to try for a short jack get ready to ask for a measure to see whether the jack has been rolled the requisite length. An extraordinary outcome would be if your side gets the jack back (if so see the close by blog article).

Another possibility is that they try for a long jack. If you see the opposition placing the mat at the 2 meter line say out loud, “Here comes that long jack.”  The idea is convey the idea that your worst nightmare is a very long jack. Actually, what you would like the opposition to do would be to ditch the jack or throw it out of bounds so your side could choose the mat position and jack length.

Once the mat position and jack length are settled the bowl deliveries begin. Your goal is to be in a position where you can secure the required multiple with your last bowl. Hopefully this can be done with a simple draw but often this will not be enough. If your deliveries are not very close to the jack they should be grouped together and behind the jack. Be particularly careful to get enough length because short bowls most likely won’t finish in the count.

When it comes down to your last bowl you need to:

• Draw to the jack if that will win or tie the end as needed
• Displace an opposition bowl if that will give you the required multiple
• Trail the jack to a grouping of your bowls if that will give you the required multiple
• Knock the jack out of bounds if that will give you the required multiple
• Push the jack into the ditch if that will give you the required multiple

No matter how difficult the shot that will give you the required multiple, there is no point in playing a simpler shot that even if successful will be insufficient.

When You Need a Big End to Win a Set and You have the Mat

 

I am not a fan of set play at lawn bowls. Set play was devised to make the game more suitable for television broadcasting. When there is no such media necessity, I see no reason why we should abandon the traditional 21-up game.

But if the authorities select set play and repotting of any jack out of bounds centered on the forward T, then, strategy should be directed to take advantage of these rules.

At set play, it doesn’t matter by how much you lose a set. When your side is behind by more than 1 point going into the last end you should play to at least tie the set. If you fail it doesn’t matter by how much you lose.

Your object is to get a multiple in the end. To achieve that you need to retain the maximum number of ways this can happen. You have the mat in this scenario but your opposition has the last bowl. Your goal is to have at least the required shots to tie the set when your opponent comes to the mat to deliver the last bowl.

To retain the most chances for this to occur you need a short jack and you need to have the respot position about 2 meters behind this jack. To do this you should place the mat about 5 meters behind the closer hog line and deliver the jack to about 2 meters in front of the forward respot position.

You play the end as best you can trying to score in the usual way. If the opposition delivers a very close bowl you should prepare to remove it but you do not need to try the removal immediately. All your side’s bowls need to be behind the jack either scoring or as potential catchers.

The idea is that when your side comes to its final bowl you want to have several alternative tactics:

• Remove their closest bowl for the required multiple
• Trail the jack for the required multiple
• Knock the jack out of bounds with repotting for the required multiple
• Pushing the jack into the ditch for the required multiple
• Draw the shot for the required multiple

No matter how difficult the shot that will give you the required multiple, there is no point in playing a simpler shot that even if successful will be insufficient.

Then you must just cross your fingers and hope the opposition's last bowl doesn’t destroy your work.

Remember that if you are playing the first set or if you have already won the first set, all you need is a tie.

The Disadvantages of Lawn Bowling from a Fixed Stance

 

No top-flight lawn bowler that I have seen, either professional or on a national team’s squad, bowls from a fixed stance. By fixed stance, I mean delivering a bowl without taking a step forward of some length- small or large.  This suggests to me that this technique has some inherent disadvantages that cannot be completely overcome even by relentless practice.

Not all bowlers who use a fixed stance exhibit all the disadvantages and all of these bowlers do deliver many excellent shots. The problem comes from the inherent disadvantages of the technique causing increased inconsistency.

The first difficulty is that a fixed stance almost completely curtails the opportunity to contribute the body’s momentum to any shot. Every delivery depends upon arm strength for all the velocity transferred to the bowl. For this reason, extra effort is required to reach long jack placements.

Nevertheless, fixed stance bowlers often have excellent arm strength, so if you are trying to take advantage of this potential problem do it at least at the end of a match or even better at the end of a full day of bowling.

The second shortcoming of fixed stance bowling is less obvious but cannot be overcome with strength. For a bowler who takes a stride as part of a delivery, the pendulum arc of that bowl has a greater amplitude than for a fixed stance delivery. By this I mean the length of the horizontal traverse of the bowl, from the top of the backswing to the point of release of the bowl from the hand, is longer for the person who takes a step. The increase in horizontal traverse corresponds to the length of the step. The result of this difference is that for any given deviation of the backswing away from the backward extension of the aim line, the error in bowling angle is less for the bowler who steps forward.

The result is that the bowler who takes a step makes smaller errors in the angle of delivery. This difference is most consequential in delivering to short jacks because with the necessarily shortened backswing, any step is a greater part of the horizontal traverse and the step contributes more to overall angle accuracy. So to take advantage of an opponent's fixed-stance delivery deliver short jacks!

I have tried to illustrate this in the Figure above wherein the fixed-stance bowler is right-handed and the stepping bowler left-handed to keep them out of each other's way in the figure. Each is trying to bowl the same line and each has the same magnitude error in the backswings.  

Teaching and Learning Lawn Bowls Badly

I made a mistake this spring when I was teaching new bowlers how to deliver lawn bowls.

I told them that the only requirement mandated by the Laws of Bowls was that when one released a bowl at least a part of one foot must be on or over the mat. This was true.

I also told them that lawn bowls was a game where consistency determined good performance; that is to say, although anyone, experienced or inexperienced, can occasionally deliver a perfect bowl using any manner of delivery, a simple delivery, like we would be teaching, is the easiest to do consistently. Which is also true.

What I ought to have also said— but failed to say, was that if one doesn’t adopt a delivery style mimicking a top-flight player, the kind one can watch competing on Youtube for example, one’s ability to improve is going to be limited. To put it another way, the reason there are almost no champion players bowling with unusual styles is that, no matter how much these styles are practiced, they have inherent limitations that cannot be overcome.

What I also ought to have said— but didn’t, was that a new bowler should perfect a style that he or she could continue to deliver for an entire bowling career. 

I remember well that I started bowling delivering from a severe crouch. See the blurred image above of me in those days taken from a publicity poster. A coach at the Turramurra Bowls Club in Sydney Australia, where I was spending the winter, asked me, “How long do you plan on playing bowls?”

“’Til I’m over 90“ I replied.

“Well,” he said, “You're not going to be able to squat like that when you’re 90. Better change it now.”

So, I should teach and new bowlers should learn a delivery that will last their entire bowling life!

Getting Your Weight Right: Using the 2/3 Rule at Lawn Bowls

 

Delivering your lawn bowl the same distance as the jack is the most difficult skill in lawn bowls. Visualization of the path that your bowl is going to travel is the most common method taught for achieving this; but, I have found, that most players need about 6 years of experience to get this right.

For new bowlers, I have found a simpler approach called the two-thirds (2/3) rule.

As always the first step is to decide on the correct aim line. The aim line is an imaginary straight line that runs from the center of the front edge of the mat and ends at some spot on or behind the forward ditch. The new step is to focus or stare at (as best you can) a section of that aim line 2/3 of the distance towards the jack. Then deliver your bowl as if trying to roll your bowl over that spot by delivering it down your aim line.

What will happen is that your bowl should travel without much deceleration as far as this stare point, passes it on the inside, and slows down from that point on to arrive at the jack length!

Why this works I have no idea. Perhaps our ancestral caveman intuition for how to throw projectiles controls our muscles once the target is 14-21 meters away. What we do learn from bowling experience is that a well-delivered bowl starts to slow down visibly once it is 2/3 to 3/5 the way towards the jack and continues rolling and curving in towards the target for the last 1/3 to 2/5 of its journey.

The downside of this trick is that you must give up using a stare point at 3-5 meters in front of the mat. As a consequence, it will be harder to recognize when you have chosen an incorrect aim line. 

Suggestions for New Bowlers

 

New bowlers tend to be particularly enthusiastic. They want to know whether their team is doing well and particularly if their bowls are in the count. Consequently, they have a tendency to stand around when measurements are being taken and even an inclination to offer suggestions about what bowls are likely important in the count. This is simply not acceptable bowling etiquette. 

Leads are supposed both to keep quiet and to leave the determination of outcomes to others. Instead, get ready with the rake to bring the bowls together for the next end if your side is going to lose the end. The lead on the side winning the end should get the mat ready and be prepared to throw the next jack. I found it useful when playing lead not to worry about the score and just concentrate on my own good bowling.

During every game when I am lead [I play lead in interclub tournaments] I keep a bowl in my hands continuously once the jack is in place until my bowls are finished. That way I am immediately ready to receive instructions from the skip and make my delivery. That way, even if I take more time setting up for my delivery, I don’t unnecessarily slow down the game.

Leads, more than other players, are very often permitted to roll whichever hand they prefer because there are fewer interfering bowls in the head. 

You may have a preference for one hand over the other based simply on a better stare point because of a fortuitously placed inhomogeneity on the rink. 

You should not change hands unless specifically requested by your skip. If there is a bowl that seems to be in the way of the delivery your skip is calling for, shifting the position of your anchor foot on the mat by a few inches can increase the likelihood that your bowl will reach the head and not suffer collision even while not defying your skip.