Another Reason to Draw Your Bowl Behind the Kitty

 Keywords: lawn bowls, tactics, strategy, delivery, draw, shot, competition, short, long, bias, tipping over, jack, weight

Novice lawn bowlers are frequently reminded that drawing long behind the jack is strategically better than being short and in front. The usual reason given is that when the jack is moved by a later bowl that movement is almost always backwards. Short bowls are very likely to end up further from the jack when the final count is taken. There is another very good reason that can be precisely quantified. Short bowls, when they tip over, usually fall away from the jack. Long bowls tend to fall down so that they end up closer to the jack. The amount the former moves closer  and the latter further away is exactly the same; that is 3 .5 inches. The result for two bowls, one that draws so that its centre of mass ends up 1 foot behind the jack and the other so its  centre of mass ends up 1 foot in front of the jack, is that after each tips over, the back bowl will be 7 inches closer than the front one! In competition this will often make a difference .

The Secret to Controlled Weight Delivering Lawn Bowls

I learned something today that was so startling and made such a dramatic difference that I was tempted to keep it as a secret- just for a year or two- I thought. Why should I share the secret? Then I thought again, “What is the point of writing a lawn bowling blog especially for novices if you hide the most important thing you discover?”

So here it is! You all must have heard, “It doesn’t matter what your style, consistency depends upon reproducibility of the delivery whatever it is.” This is true; but, I didn’t realize how precisely the statement must be interpreted. You need to be able to reproduce the same form exactly, in every detail, even those things that you think can’t be very important. This is why simple delivery styles are best, even though any style can be perfected. Uncomplicated movements are the easiest (I didn’t say easy) to repeat consistently, end after end, season after season. There is a valuable dividend that follows from this simplicity. If your style is reproducible in every little respect then your mental computer will make corrections to the speed with which you release the bowl to correct for previous short or long bowls.

I say I have magically improved my draw accuracy. What was I doing inconsistently before? My follow through was not sufficiently controlled. My bowling hand came up somewhat higher sometimes than other times. My fingers flexed sometimes while remaining straight other times. I would not have expected that these are consequential differences, but they are. 

I discovered these differences watching professional indoor bowlers on Youtube and asking myself, “How does my delivery deviate most from theirs?” The answer was that, in the follow through for any draw shot, their hands were still pointing to the ground. They never raised their bowling arm more than 45 degrees from the vertical. They stopped the arm rather more abruptly after releasing the bowl and never curled their fingers up. Moreover, many of the best players followed through by walking. with halting measured steps off the mat following the line of delivery and as they watched the progress of each bowl. See for example Foster and Marshall in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zql2KzXudGI who exhibit this distinctly. With these two champions the exaggeration of these points makes it even easier to see.

So now I keep these little things constant, concentrate on a smooth release onto the green and let my subconscious computer determine the weight. All I tell myself is whether the jack is short, medium or long while I look carefully at its position. I don't consciously measure my backswing the way I did when I started! 

Draw or Drive at Lawn Bowls: The Tactical Decision

There is an old saying: draw for dough, drive for show.

I think that this is saying is that those who win the tournaments use the drive shot less frequently than those who do not. That is, those who drive most often end up out of the money.

But this may be confusing cause and effect. Those who drive most often do so because they are already in trouble. They are already most at risk of having a multiple count against them or losing outright in the final ends; that is- being out of the money. The winners who eventually get that ‘dough’ are most likely the ones threatening to score a big count.

To know when it is tactically wise to drive in singles or as the skip in other contests, (in team games you don't bowl with weight unless the skip calls for it), you need to know some statistics about your own draw accuracy. I use the median of medians test to measure this. For example, for me, only one bowl in three come less than 52 inches from the jack. From this, I calculate that only one bowl in six will be within 37 inches. This is pretty bad; but hey, I’m still a novice playing on a fast green.

Anyway, one bowl sitting beside the jack can present a cross-sectional target as large as 17 inches. Furthermore, with a hard drive one does not need to worry about accuracy with respect to weight. How hard your bowl crashes into the forward ditch doesn’t matter. Consequently, the problem is reduced from a two-dimensional problem for that draw for shot: correct line and correct weight; or the one-dimensional problem: correct line for the drive. Which do I think I have a better chance of achieving: driving and passing within 8 ½ inches (either side) of the center of my target one bowl out of six; or drawing within 37 inches of the jack one out of six? Assuming a bit of instruction and practice in the basics of driving, the latter would be my statistical choice. Remember most people drive faster than necessary and so lose accuracy. But also remember, there are other tactical considerations because the two shots' purposes are different. Generally, drawing is to score while  driving is to save.

So:

1. For a promising drive, the target should be at least as large as a jack-high bowl separated by 5  inches (the cross-section of my bowl) from the jack.

2. You must almost certainly have the prospect to save at least 1, usually more, if you hit anywhere on the target.

3. You should have a second or third in the head which you are very unlikely to hit with your drive.

My conclusion is that, so long as you have been taught something about driving, you are likely to use it properly more when you are just a 3-5 year novice, because your median draw shot is relatively inaccurate. As your draw ability improves, driving will become tactically less often appropriate. Put another way, as you become more likely to win dough, you will be less frequently in situations where driving is the statistically correct tactic. 

Shoulder Season: Time to Practice Running and Drive Shots

At the James Garden Lawn Bowling Club in Toronto Canada http://www.jamesgardenslbc.ca/ , October is the end of the bowling season. By the end of the month the last day to clean out lockers has come and gone. If you know the combination for the lock on the bowling shed you can still get mats, jacks etc. Most bowlers are gone. It can be rainy and cold. Alley bowling, curling, hockey and figure skating beckon for a large part of the membership. This is a good time for me to get out, on the better days, to practice running shots and drive shots. Now there are no people playing on adjacent greens to find you a nuisance and to grumble or to disparage your first novice attempts. Even when you could confine all the bowls to your own rink during the popular bowling months, there was a vocal contingent who thought giving anything more than a nudge to opposition bowls was not sporting. Now I can practice in secret! From the end of December until the middle of March I will be in Sydney Australia where my wife and I have been invited to play and take advantage of the coaching at the Turramurra Lawn Bowling Club.