Choosing Your Bowl Size; Different Advice

When I started lawn bowling in May 2012, I followed the standard advice. If I could touch both my two index fingers and my two thumbs together at the same time while encircling the running surface of the bowl, it was not too big for me. Following this advice I started with a number 4 Vector VS made by Taylor. (Such bowls are the best value/price delivered in Canada  and ordered on-line.)

Now after two years of experience, my own suggestion is different. Nonetheless, there is nothing wrong with this standard advice, if you are just going to be a social bowler who never tries anything but a draw shot. If, however, there is the slightest chance that you are going to get hooked on this game and become serious and competitive, your bowl size should be the one which you can hold firmly when you are holding the bowl with your hand inverted (thumb towards the ground) using the grip you will employ for a drive shot. (It is not necessarily comfortably holding the bowl this way; you will feel a strain from the weight of the bowl but you should be able to hold it 15 seconds without falling. The reason for this requirement is that the drive shot requires a substantial backswing. At the high point in that backswing you will be holding your bowl in your drive grip with your thumb underneath the bowl. It is at this point that you are most likely to lose your grip on the bowl.

I have found that if I use the next smaller size to what I would have chosen using the conventional test (in my case a number 3 instead of a number 4 bowl), my hold on the bowl even during a drive is  more secure.  I have never heard this advice anywhere but that is what works for me!

The Rules for Using Ground Sheets

I lawn bowl in Canada and the weather is rarely conducive to the most comfortable bowling. The outdoor season is no more than 6 months, to begin with, and we have a good deal of wet weather as well as rather heavy early morning dew. Tournament authorities often require ground sheets. Some clubs I have played at, it seems, always use ground sheets for club play. They have many players who drop their bowls, so I sympathize with these greenkeepers. In my limited experience, groundsheets do prevent divots.

Despite their widespread use in Canada, it seems not everybody even among tournament players  knows the rules that pertain to groundsheets.  Since these rules may benefit beginning novices playing against more seasoned opponents, assertive beginners ought to know them. The conditions of play as issued by the Ontario Lawn Bowls Association make no reference to groundsheets so the relevant rules apply without modification. I quote from the Laws of the Sport of Bowls, Crystal Mark Second Edition. http://www.worldbowlsltd.co.uk/laws/Crystal_Mark_Second_Edition.pdf

1.3.12 Groundsheet: a rectangular piece of canvas or other suitable fabric placed temporarily on the surface of the green to protect it from any damage caused as a result of a player delivering the jack or a bowl.  The rear edge of the groundsheet should be placed at least 2 meters from the rear ditch and at least 25 meters from the front ditch (in line with requirements for placing the mat described in laws 19.1.1 and 19.1.5).

 19.1.5  If one or more groundsheets are to be used (outdoor play only), the following will apply:

19.1.5.1 
The Controlling Body should consult the nominated greenkeeper before deciding where the groundsheets will be placed. The position should be in line with law 1.3.12

19.1.5.2
The Controlling Body can make the decision to use ground sheets either before the start of play or at any time during play.

19.1.5.3
The groundsheets should be securely fastened to the surface of the green using flat-headed pins (or an equivalent) that do not stick up from the surface.

19.1.5.4
The groundsheets should stay in the same position until the end of the game or until the Controlling Body decides they are no longer needed. 

19.1.5.5
The mat line should be placed on the rear edge of the groundsheet.

The last two are the most significant sections for my consideration here. The groundsheets on any rink are not to be moved from the initial positions they have been placed in. These positions are not necessarily the same on each rink. Players are not to adjust the sheets on their rink. The mat is not to be moved forward on the groundsheet. Its front edge should always touch or slightly overlap the back edge of the ground sheet. Note particularly that the groundsheets are not to be moved forward in the same way the mat can be when playing without groundsheets. Neither can the ground sheet closer to the front ditch be taken up during play. Only the Controlling Body can order that all the ground sheets be taken up.

The effect of these rules is to simplify the game and this in general benefits less experienced players. When groundsheets are in play the controlling skip cannot order the mat brought forward. The mat position is fixed at the back edge of the groundsheet. The only way to change the condition of play is by throwing different lengths of jack from the fixed mat position.

It is the skips and only the skips who decide that a ruling is needed on a law. As a non-skip, all you can do is inform your skip of the appropriate Law of the Sport of Bowls. If your skip does not wish to take action that is the end of it. Don’t lose your concentration over it! If you are playing singles, then you are your own skip and you can stop the action and call for an umpire’s ruling. In this situation, the umpire’s decision is not final. Law 56.2.6 allows an appeal to the Controlling Body.

Although, you would be in the right, trying to enforce these rules regarding groundsheets at any time, will only distract you. Never make an issue of them, unless it is in a competition exceedingly important for you. Despite being correct, you may nevertheless be overruled by local authorities who will be embarrassed and likely to disfavor you. The most you may do is delay play or interfere with your opponent’s concentration. Certainly don’t let it interfere with your concentration. If you think it will say nothing. In friendly games, all you might do is casually mention to others on the rink that the laws are in fact such and such.
 

Even More Improvements in Delivery Accuracy by Starting the Bowl Delivery More Slowly

I am a second year novice lawn bowler that has practiced and played most often on a fast synthetic outdoor carpet. My home club is James Gardens in Toronto Canada. Less frequently, I practice on natural grass at the Willowdale Lawn Bowling Club in North York. Almost all my tournament matches are played on grass since it is the overwhelmingly most common surface in the region.

My performance in practice and in tournaments on grass is unmistakably inferior to my play on the synthetic surface. At first, I thought it was just unfamiliarity with the surface, but even during a practice session on grass my delivery seemed to remain haphazard and my bad bowls random even after practicing for ½ hour.

Yet finally, by making one change, I was able almost instantly to start bunching my bowls closely around the jack, when only minutes before a comparable set were disposed over a rather wide area around it.   I slowed down my delivery. I drew back the bowl in the backswing very gradually. I then stepped forward smartly just before or as the backswing is complete and planted my advancing foot firmly. Then, and only then, did I swing forward towards my stare point and follow through.

Why was this timing problem showing up so much more seriously on grass than on the synthetic carpet? I think because, recognizing that I needed to deliver the bowl with more power, I was speeding up not just the forward motion of my arm but the entire delivery sequence and this caused me to start my forward swing before my advancing foot was firmly planted. Even my backswing was being sped up making the elevation of the bowl more in error.

It seems every action in the delivery, whether on a fast synthetic surface or on slow grass, needs to be identical right up until the start of the forward swing and this applies most particularly to the timing!

  Using this insight I contributed something when my triples team won two of three in the last open tournament of the Canadian season. We even got some money!