Back at Turramurra LBC

I was playing fours Wednesday at Turramurra. I was having difficulty with the weight of my deliveries. Coach reminded me at tea time to keep my non-bowling hand on my knee. “It is flying all over the place.” I wasn’t aware of it. Repairing my form I played much more consistently in the second half.

The next day when I was practicing at the rollup another coach told me not to follow through with my hand as much. “It should not rise above your knee or more than an angle of 45 degrees from the horizontal.” Following this advice I was able to control my weight much better. I practiced bowling alternately to jacks at different lengths. After a few thousand more practice bowls this will become automatic also!!

Finding and Holding my Stare Point Depends Critically upon the Green’s Material Makeup

My best lawn bowling results occur when I can stare at a distinct physical mark on the rink surface about 5 meters in front of the mat on my aim line. Then when I deliver a bowl, I can see whether it passes over my mark or not. Consequently, I know whether a bad result occurs because I have missed my stare point or because I have a wrong stare point.
The easiest situation for feedback on this count arises playing on grass in Australia. There, because they have a chalked center line, I can find lots of longitudinal ad latitudinal lines from only partially erased chalk, in both of the directions, from other setups of the rinks where the greens keeper has worked to make the wear and tear on the rink even out.. It is easy to select a point on one of these lines or even an intersection of two of these lines that handily serves as a stare point. Not quite as good as this is the situation bowling on many Canadian grass rinks (they don’t use chalked center lines). On these the grass is often uneven, with brown spots , bare spots, brown spots, and partially discolored spots that can serve as stare points. On artificial surfaces it is harder to find a distinct mark for a stare point, but at least when the green is outside there are stray leaves, plant seeds, bits of sand and even some discolored spots to aim at. The most difficult surface of all is an artificial carpet that is indoors. There I find virtually nothing to fixate on. As a result, I am compelled to bowl at some mark  on or behind the forward ditch. With the winter weather now upon us in Canada, my only bowling opportunity is indoors on such a carpet.
Even though I am only practicing (waiting to leave for Australia next week) I know my  game is seriously deteriorating under the conditions. There is just no useful stare point and I don’t have that feel required to just deliver at a precise angle.  

A Lawn Bowl Strategy for the Lead at Pairs: Is there an Ideal Disposition of Bowls that can be laid down by a Lead Bowler?

Lawn bowls can be played as a game for singles, pairs, triples, or fours. Each has its subtle differences. I think the most different of all games is singles where only 8 bowls total are played. By comparison, pairs rolls 16, triples 18, and fours 16. In this blog article, I will be looking at pairs in particular, but there is some application to triples and fours, but I think very little to singles.

The question I want to explore is “Can we imagine a strategy for play by the lead in lawn bowling pairs, worked out in advance, that can give an advantage?”

At the start of the game, in the first end, one team gets to choose the position of the mat and the distance of the jack from the mat. The second team gets the advantage of playing the last bowl.

At all skill levels, bowling last is considered best and the  team that wins the choice chooses that their opponents ‘lead the way.'  Is this the best choice?

At Premier League level- yes, but among average competitive bowlers,  I suspect not. Too often the team that chooses the mat position and the length of the first jack just places the mat at the T and delivers a long or medium jack. A good pairs team should have a preferred length and mat position that is non-standard and which they can set up if they have the mat first in the match. This requires both that this strategy is understood by both team members and that the lead has practiced delivering jacks the predetermined distance.

Another point is that the lead who delivers the jack has the best opportunity to study how the jack’s path differs from a straight line along the aim line (because only the deliverer knows what the exact aim line was and how closely the throw followed it). The jack generally will run off-line towards the narrow hand. The lead can make use of this in delivering the first bowl.

An example of a strategy, (a strategy is a predetermined plan), if given the mat or selecting it, is to move it out twelve feet from the back ditch and deliver the jack a medium distance that you have already specifically practiced; delivering the jack as precisely as possible down the centerline watching to see to which side it curves. Then bowl the first bowl on this supposed narrow side trying to achieve a good back bowl about 6 feet behind the jack. This will allow one to get a better feel for the correct weight for the following three lead bowls with the lowest risk of actually wasting a bowl by throwing the first one short.  With the next two bowls aim for two yard-on bowls. If either of these goes a bit short it will be one of the shot bowls in the head. Only if the lead reaches his fourth bowl without getting one within a few feet of the jack should he shorten his weight aiming for the jack's actual length. By this time the earlier bowls will have given the best teaching for the correct weight. The result after the lead has completed his deliveries should be a first or second shot and three back bowls. The lead should deliver all his bowls in the expectation that at the completion of the end the jack will have been displaced backward towards the majority of his bowls.

A Lawn Bowl Blocks More than its Size

Often your skip will direct you to bowl away from the side of the rink where an opponent’s bowl blocks the approach to the jack (called ‘in the draw’); particularly, when that bowl is close enough that, if hit, it could be advanced close up to the jack. As leads or vices, we may be disinclined to change sides, because we might have already found the correct grass or even a good aiming mark there. Nevertheless, we need to be aware that an opponent’s bowl blocks more than just its own cross section. If even a small portion of your bowl hits that blocking bowl it will be thrown seriously off-line. The actual space excluded by that standing bowl is between 2 ½ to 3 times its diameter. Put another way the standing bowl blocks a cross section of 12 ½ inches perpendicular to the path of your bowl! It is also highly likely that, if you hit a bowl standing short of the jack, it will be moved closer to the jack. If your shot is too weak for that, your own bowl will be stopped dead and prevented from entering the head.

In contrast, if you deliver your bowl  as requested from the opposite hand, you have the added chance to wick off that standing bowl, if it is fairly close to the jack moving it away from the jack. Furthermore, your bowl may wick closer depending upon how you hit that opposition bowl. Being directed to the opposite hand allows you an unimpeded road to the jack with a chance to dislodge the opposing bowl or trail the jack away from it.

My Experience with Knee Pain Playing Lawn Bowls

Recently I was experiencing pain in my left knee when lawn bowling. I am a left handed bowler. I experience no swelling. I tried applying ice packs after matches. I also tried wrapping the knee in a heating pad while sleeping after multiple matches in a day. Of the two the heat seemed to be more effective. I searched the internet for descriptions by others of the same problem.

I found one case almost identical in a discussion on the Julian Haines site which I quote extensively below.

https://julianhainesbowls.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?24662-Knee-Injury-can-anyone-help

“I've had a knee injury for a while now that I just can't get rid of and wondered if anyone else has had a similar problem that they've managed to sort out.

This is the background:

I'm getting a pain over the top of my left knee cap whenever my left knee bears weight. The pain is at the crucial moment in delivery when I step forward with my right foot (I'm left-handed) and the left leg takes the strain. The pain is mild at the start of a game but towards the end of the game, I'm struggling to deliver a wood.

The injury started back in March/April at the end of the indoor season and I hoped that having already decided not to bowl outdoors this summer, the rest would cure it. However, it didn't, and as soon as I went back to bowling the pain returned immediately.

I've been seeing a very good sports physio who has determined that it is a problem with the tendon/muscle and not a cartilage or ligament issue. He gave me stretching exercises to do at first and then started on strengthening exercises for the quadriceps two weeks ago. On his advice I tried to bowl again last night, having not bowled or exercised my knee in almost any way for over a month, but the pain returned almost immediately and I managed about 20 minutes before coming off. I have also felt pain in my knee all day today so it's not getting any better.

Apart from starting to bowl right-handed, does anyone have any advice from experience with anything similar as I don't have much time left before the start of the new season now?!”

The link is provided so you people can see all the responses.

A knee brace was a suggestion offered more than once in this on-line discussion; however, I looked for something in my delivery that was triggering the difficulty. The rationale was that I have never had joint problems and cannot recall any particular moment when an injury could have happened? Furthermore, I am only 68. If I have real physical damage now, what possibility do I have of bowling into a ripe old age?

 I think I may have found something causing this problem in my delivery. In my delivery I have been almost completing my backswing before starting my forward step. I could do this because my backswing was very slow, measured, and deliberate. My step forward occurred during that hesitation moment at the top of the backswing. My hypothesis about my ailment was that stepping forward with the bowl raised was making balance shaky which transferred too much extra stress to my anchor knee.  Facts supportive of this hypothesis are:

If I swing the bowl forward so early that it coincides with the start of my forward stepping this causes an instant of pain

If I do not transfer my weight forward onto my advancing leg fast enough the weight remains too much on my anchor leg causing this pain.

If I start stepping with my anchor foot as the bowl comes to the bottom of the backswing (when the bowl is closest to my anchor foot) the pain is greatly lessened

If I transfer more weight forward more quickly before the backswing is complete the problem is less

If I exaggerate my follow-through so that my anchor foot moves up to meet the foot I have advanced, there is improvement.

Making these changes has started to reduce the pain per delivery; also bowls are even more consistent in both weight and line! More testing is underway.
Since then I have consulted a physiotherapist. She says that my knee cap has not been sliding up on down a natural groove in the thigh bone. I have undertaken a regime of exercises to fix this; however, I can’t tell whether it is the exercises or the end of the bowling season that has resulted in the almost complete disappearance of symptoms when I go through the delivery motion.

Arm Motion in the Lawn Bowling Delivery

When I was provided my first lessons in lawn bowling (three years ago), I was instructed to draw back my arm along the aiming line keeping the plane of the running surface of the bowl precisely vertical. Subsequently, I saw that many experienced bowlers when they started their pendulum delivery turned the palm in towards the side of the body as it passed through the plane of the body and only turned the hand back to its starting orientation as it reached the point where the bowl was to be released. When I was given instructional material during my winter sojourn in Australia, this was proposed as a useful modification in the delivery. For the past two years, I couldn’t understand what advantage this could bring. Now, I see that when I try to keep the plane of the bowl’s running surface fixed, if there arises a need for the backswing to be more pronounced, I can feel my shoulder muscle stretching excessively. This stress causes the top of the backswing to deviate in a direction away from the body. This would cause one to bowl narrow on the forehand and wide on the backhand.

If one turns one’s palm in through the backswing this stressing doesn’t occur.
So it might make sense, at least for heavy drive shots or when bowling on particularly slow greens, to turn the wrist in. One might think that changing one’s delivery for drive shots might complicate life; however, there is a hypothesis that making the drive delivery significantly different from the draw has an advantage: because the two shots follow a different style, your mental computer that is supposed to automatically control the proper weight of your shots, does not confuse the weight for a drive with the proper weight for a draw shot. As a consequence according to this hypothesis,  a draw shot delivered immediately after a drive will not be as likely to be overweight. Apparently, if drive and draw have much in common, drives tend to cause draws immediately following to be too heavy.

How to Run a Lawn Bowls Tournament as Drawmaster

Before moving on to join another lawn bowling club a mentor gave me some pointers on how to run a tournament as drawmaster. I pass these on. It isn’t rocket science. Any bowler including those with only a few years’ experience should be able to handle it.

The money is collected from the participants who wish to be included in the draw for teams. In return the player’s name tag is taken. The drawmaster arranges a trial set of teams, matching the players to the appropriate draw pool (leads,vices,skips) based on approximate ability. The drawmaster counts players up until the cut off time for entry. In favorable cases (s)he has additional players including sometimes himself, who will play or not as needed to make the team numbers work out properly. When (s)he has assembled his players into groups of equal numbers and approximately equal abilities (s)he places the skips, the leads, the vices if needed and the seconds if playing fours into separate bins.

In public, in the view of the participants, the drawmaster picks skips from the skip group and places them on the draw board on rinks at random. In turn, the skips pick the other members of their team randomly from the tags.

The rules are read. Special local rules pointed out. Arrangements for lunch and in case of inclement weather are stated.

After play begins the drawmaster transfers the information for each team to a plastic card using a felt tipped pen and so sets up to record the results from the games as they come in. The cards are slotted on a board according to the rink the teams are playing on in the first round.

Then the drawmaster sorts the entry fee money which should be in small denomination bills for ease in splitting into the prize packages. To this is added any extra money, from a sponsorship for example. Based on the number of entries and the philosophy of the sponsor or bowling club it is decided how many prizes will be awarded. There should be a prize for last game high so that all teams have a chance to win money no matter what their performance has been before the last round (otherwise some players might go home). Envelopes are labelled with the name of the prize ie tournament winner, two game winners, high one game winner etc. No more than half the teams should receive prizes.

No team can receive a game score higher than 1.5 times the number of ends played. That is, for 12 end games the maximum points is 18. If more points are won the score is written as 18+ some number. Plus points are used to break ties at the end of the tournament. Ends won are used to rank teams for choosing next round opponents if points for are equal.

When the scores from the first round come in, you need to get both score cards because the drawmaster must check that these agree. The results are written on the plastic cards.  Winners play winners, losers, losers, the object being that teams play other teams with the same won/loss record. The teams are ranked, first according to win/lose record, and second by total points for. When the teams are matched for the next round, rinks are assigned so that no team plays on a rink it has played on already, If possible no team plays repeatedly on end rinks because these rinks tend to be wonky. If there are several greens in use, teams should play if possible on new greens.

At some point the envelopes are charged with the predetermined prize money leaving space for the players’ names and their final score.

After the final round the teams are ranked according to performance on the day. No team can win more than a single prize. Each team is awarded the highest value prize that it qualifies for. The prize winners are announced in reverse order, for example the last game high is announced first and the tournament winner last.

Winners are responsible for publicly thanking the refreshments committee, the sponsors, the green keepers etc. but if they fail to mention some group the drawmaster should seek recognition for these people. 

The Etiquette or Rule about Practice before a Match

These past few weeks I have played in several tournaments where there were plenty of novice bowlers. At each event some of these new bowlers, as soon as they knew which rink they were scheduled to play on, began throwing practice bowls on that rink. This is bad form. It can be embarrassing as well because, as happened on one of these occasions, the tournament committee came on the loud speaker and ordered the offenders to stop bowling where they were practicing. I do not know whether it is an actual rule or just proper bowling etiquette but practice on the day of a tournament is acceptable only if it is done at right angles to that day’s competition direction. All I can find in the Laws of the Sport of Bowls Crystal Mark 2^nd Edition is:

12.3   If, before play starts, a player in a competition or game plays on the same rink on the day of the competition or game that player will be disqualified. This does not apply to open tournaments.

From this it is not clear when such action is actually unlawful rather than just gauche.

The reason for the admonition is fairly obvious. Part of the skill in lawn bowls is the ability to quickly learn what is the proper grass, what is the narrow side and what weight to play on the assigned rink under the given weather conditions, and no player on any team should begin a match with special knowledge just gathered before play starts using unofficial practice bowling.

In Ontario Canada where I compete, there are no trial ends allowed in tournaments so I can understand the extra nervousness this creates for novice bowlers; but, good form is important and we should not violate it.  

Keeping Score

I recently played in an open tournament for novices where the teams were chosen randomly by draw(Cosburn Park,Toronto). The result is that you mostly play with strangers and against strangers. I was playing as a vice and the skips were keeping score. There was no scoreboard. I eventually hollered to my skip to get the score, because I knew it was the last end. My skip either could not hear or understand me but an opponent offered that the score was 8-12. We had been losing the most recent ends andI  presumed that we were behind. I played shots that offered the best prospect to score 4 points! As you can imagine these would have been quite different if I had understood that we were 4 up! Fortunately, I did not manage to completely bugger things up and we won the match.

The morale: keep your own score sheet if there is no public scoreboard, especially, if communication within the team is poor for some reason.  

The Importance of a Smooth Delivery

In a smooth delivery the bowl is grassed without wobble. Wobble is that side-to-side shaking of an improperly delivered bowl. It is most pronounced immediately after release. Wobble usually corrects itself before the bowl finally comes to rest and for this reason many lawn bowlers think it has little effect on the precision of their deliveries. It is only, they think, that when wobble becomes very exaggerated, as when it is called a pineapple, that it has an effect on both the intended weight and line.

Bowls that take little grass are the most susceptible to wobble from improper delivery. There has been considerable controversy about narrow running bowls, sometimes called ‘cheater bowls’.  These bowls are legal according to the present International Rules of the Sport of Bowls. They have a running surface engineered with a cross sectional curvature such that, when tested, without introducing any wobble, on the standard bowls testing table, the bowl does take the approved minimum grass (bias from straight) set by the International Laws of Bowls. Yet, if the same bowl is delivered, on the same testing table with some wobble, it does not curve the required amount. Furthermore, and what is of more practically significant, when it is delivered under outdoor conditions on grass, even without wobble, it again does not show the minimum bias exhibited by a standard bowl under the same conditions.

Since I am a novice, I am most often playing lead in competitions and I have chosen to use relatively narrow running Taylor Vector VS bowls. Since my entry into the head is unlikely to be seriously blocked, the shortest path to the jack is the least likely to suffer misadventure. But there is a linked risk. On a less than perfect rink, the effect of wobble seems to be compounded. Perhaps the combination of momentarily running on the edge of the bowl’s running surface and a sudden deviation in the green surface seems to throw the trajectory off more significantly. I have noticed that on the James Gardens’ synthetic surface, where the seams are beginning to appear a bit raised above the rest of the surface, delivering with any wobble can significantly divert my bowl from its intended path. Thus a smooth release of a perfectly upright bowl becomes a high priority. 

A Lawn Bowling Delivery Error Caused by Off-Rink Practice

Keen lawn bowlers (like myself) can get into a bad habit while practicing lawn bowl delivery off the rink. We want to go through the motions of a standard delivery and we want to hold the bowl during that practice swing to maintain proper balance; but, we can’t actually let go of the bowl, because it would seriously damage the furniture (or whatever else is around us). As a result, we hold onto the bowl while we simulate the follow through.

This, I have discovered, creates a bad habit that requires still more practice on the rink to eliminate. The difficulty is that such practice causes me to hold onto the bowl past the time when my bowling arm is vertical to the green when I am actually playing. That is, the bowl gets released further along the rink and not just a few centimeters in front of my advancing foot, as it should be.

This has unfortunate consequences. The further my arm extends out in front of my body the greater the inclination for it to pass slightly across my body, making forehands narrower and backhands wider than planned. But this is the least important potential problem, because so long as I force my bowling hand to stay over the aim line and resist turning my open palm inward, the bowl should still go straight along the planned path. The second and more serious, unavoidable consequence is that the bowl will receive less push down the rink and will have less weight than one properly released. The reason: when a bowl is released late with the bowling arm less than vertical, some of the muscle impetus that should go into pushing the bowl down the rink will instead be wasted push it slightly upwards. A further consequence is that the bowl will dump onto the playing surface to some extent. Because differing energies will be lost depending on the place where the bowl is released, consistent weight will become more elusive.

Why Lawn Bowling is in Decline

In the lawn bowling mens’ pairs competition at the Toronto Cricket Club yesterday, I think I was the only novice playing.  I played three matches, losing three. In Canada, unlikely my experience over the winter in Australia, because there are so few tournament players, if you are in a significant tournament you play only against the best and most competitive. Since there are no selectors in Canada, there are no levels, and so there are no gradations of players into different leagues. There is one exception. Canada has a class called novice for people who have only played for five years or less and there are a handful tournaments restricted to novices only.

Don’t get me wrong. I have no problem with this setup. It is an unparalleled opportunity to play against only the best players. What it does do is make the rapid progress of novice players dependent upon having very selfless mentors as partners in these team events. These experienced players give away their chances to score better, so a beginner can improve more quickly. This is probably why the only good young players have a family member that can bowl with them. I think an even stronger statement is possible. There are essentially no young players who do not have close relatives who bowl. The social mobility of our society is what is causing the decline of the lawn bowling population. Granddad can’t conveniently bowl with his grandson or granddaughter because they now typically live far away!

I don’t blame lawn bowlers who want to play only with the best and against the best. It is their time, their recreation and they are entitled to have their fun. But from now on, don’t fuss about what is happening to our sport and rather hold in awe those selfless few who do struggle to maintain or  even resuscitate it. 

Novice Lawn Bowlers, who show initiative, must learn everything faster

Beginning lawn bowlers play lead. Novice lawn bowlers, at most Canadian clubs, find that if they show significant improvement they are rapidly moved higher on the tag board and end up playing other positions. At James Gardens, my home club in Toronto Canada for example, my wife is now often slotted into club tournaments as vice, even though she is only in her second year bowling. In club pick-up games I am now usually made a skip, even though I am only bowling for my third year. So, in actual practice, novice players must be able to make a workable go at all the shots called for in all the positions.

Additionally, they need a clear understanding of the duties of all the team positions and a fair grasp of the most frequently applicable rules of the game. All that is OK with me. Novice bowlers who show the more initiative just need to understand, they are in the accelerated program!

When You Just Don’t Hit Your Stare Point

I just finished a friendly pick-up game where I bowled very badly. The question the result elicits is “What should you check immediately if you are not hitting your stare point?”

For me the most likely suspects are:

1)           I am not setting my advancing foot on the ground before beginning the forward sweep of my bowling arm.

2)           I am drawing my bowling arm back too quickly so that it does not go back along the aim line.

P.S.

In the same game, I was playing against a seasoned bowler who always plays lead. He sets the mat at the 2-meter mark and sends the jack to within two meters of the ditch. With such groove bowlers, it is important to take them away from their game. Set the mat anywhere except the standard two meters from the back ditch.

Getting to Full Length on Slow Greens

My wife, Tish, and I were practicing bowling to long jacks on the heavy grass greens at the Willowdale Lawn Bowling Club in Toronto Canada. The green was still slightly moist and it had not been cut for a few days because the mower had broken down. Tish, who is slight of build but quite strong, could not get her bowl from a mat at the 2 meter mark up to a jack two meters from the front ditch. I had read somewhere that one could add extra length by flicking one’s fingers to provide some rotational velocity to the bowl just as it left one’s hand. According to physics, this should add length because a bowl normally delivered will partially slide at the outset and only after an instant more acquire enough angular velocity to roll properly. While it is sliding the bowl is subject to a higher resistance than when it rolls; therefore, if the bowl can be made to roll from the outset it should travel further.

When Tish tried this immediately her deliveries were about four meters longer. She was able to bowl the full length of the rink. The effect was dramatic!

I don’t think this finger flicking should be incorporated as part of a regular delivery because it seems the extent of the flick would be hard to keep constant, but it certainly seems to help when there appears no other way to add length.

Another Good Lawn Bowls Blog

Today I want to recommend another lawn bowls blog written by a novice bowler called, John McKinnie, who plays out of the St. Ives Bowls Club in England. His blog is called Bowling for Gold http://bowlingforgold.blogspot.ca/. The blog is in large part a documentation of his weekly bowling activity and its challenges, but it contains many useful tips to overcome common novice problems. Some ideas that have helped me: 

• take practice swings to improve your line (my coach doesn’t like this idea),
• imagine that there is a steel rod running down your arm through your elbow and wrist to make delivery more consistent and 
• try to pick up a folded scorecard positioned on your aim line with your index finger when practicing your delivery motion to improve your follow through.

Maple Key Obstacles on the Bowling Green

This week, the James Garden lawn bowling club’s synthetic green is covered with last year’s maple seeds (called keys) that the swirling wind has blown all over the surface from the nearby park trees.

Maple keys have a thin flat wing portion that lies flat on the ground and will not disturb the path of a bowl, but each seed also has a hard round part, like a little ball bearing, that will not roll but can distinctly change the path of a lawn bowl and can stop it dead when the bowl has slowed down.


Although these seeds can be swept up, more keep blowing in if there is a wind, and those already on the green keep moving from one place to another. These add an extra obstacle to competitive bowling. Some people say that bad greens are just as bad for everybody but this is not true. Bad greens penalize better players more. The more random luck that is introduced, the more likely the poorer team is to win a match.

In the presence of maple keys littering your rink the best strategy is to throw short jacks and drive at the jack if you get down several bowls in an end. The maple keys don’t throw off fast moving drives to the same extent and if you try to draw to save there is a good chance your bowl could be sent off course by one of these seeds.  

Squatting Helps Choosing Your Stare Point in Lawn Bowls

I have found that choosing a stare point about 5 meters in advance of the front edge of the mat works best for me. When helping to instruct beginners, I often make a chalk mark that far out at approximately the correct angle for their bowls’ bias. This way the beginner gets a clearer idea of whether (s)he is properly controlling their delivery angle.

The rest of us must struggle to identify slight imperfections in the grass or carpet to stare at. I have found recently that squatting on the mat while looking down at the far bank helps me choose a stare point that is truly on the aim line. There is a bonus. After I stand up and assume my erect delivery stance, all this time holding that stare point, I deliver my bowl more quickly, because the longer I have to focus on my stare point the more likely my view of it will slip! As a consequence, I bowl better and faster.

Any Delivery Can Work So Long as it is Reproducible

At a time of year when club mentors for new bowlers are teaching the elements of the draw shot, we should be sensitive to the fact that, because of minor frailties, many of the new bowlers cannot deliver from the athletic position. The previous post suggests the different possibilities that bowlers could adopt. To emphasize the point that any delivery can give extraordinary results, so long as it can be reproduced exactly I direct readers to a video that shows  Ian (Tails) Taylor bowling at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lfeYIPR_NI. No-one will have a delivery more complicated and more difficult to reproduce than this. So remember: the reason coaches teach what they do is because what we teach are the simplest deliveries and these are the easiest to groove into a good habit. 

Teaching New Lawn Bowlers

May is the start of the lawn bowling season in Canada. All clubs try at this time of year to interest new people to become members and take up the sport. I started participating after attending an Open House at James Gardens LBC in May 2012. I help out with the mentoring and coaching at this same club as my volunteering contribution to the maintenance of the sport.

The core of the instruction is trying to give new bowlers sufficient skill delivering a draw shot that they can become involved in social bowling as a lead. What I have noticed is that our teaching methods have not changed to keep pace with the modern technologies that are widely available to our students. Because lawn bowling instruction videos are now available via the internet, teachers at the club level should be taking advantage of them. Different styles of delivery are taught and a new bowler can be directed to a bowling style  consistent with his or her physical condition, taking into account  slight disabilities such as arthritic hands, bad knees or bad backs. There are many different deliveries: the athletic delivery, the crouch delivery, the semi-crouch, the Scotttish runner and the South African. Instead of trying to teach everyone the athletic delivery, we should be showing people such videos illustrating the different styles and work with them to select the most appropriate. The different styles are well illustrated for example by the great bowler Tony Alcock at  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilifGJBDo5U.
After showing them what is available, we club mentors can let the newcomers try to imitate a selected delivery on our green. I think we will get many more people interested in lawn bowls if they can choose a delivery that is not a strain on their natural capabilities.

Don’t give Up On Your Aim Line Just Because One Bowl Misfires

Part of my practice routine is to bowl between two chalk marks separated by a space the diameter of a jack. These two marks are placed 5 meters in advance of the front edge of the mat.

 This way I get unambiguous visual feedback about how precise my control of line is. But, when I was doing this, I discovered a curious thing. Sometimes my line is right-on-the-money but still the bowl ends up very far away from the resting place of all the other practice bowls delivered before and after the suspect one. If I was in a competition, I might take this bad outcome from a single delivery as evidence that my line was wrong and I might deliver the next bowl wider or narrower as the case required. What this practice evidence showed me was that such a change could be completely wrong. I may just have encountered a misfire. The right course is probably just to continue subsequent bowling with no change in aim line. It is only if you are hitting your aim line- and two consecutive bowls go errant in the same way- that it is proven that it is your aim line that needs to change.

I got these sometimes erratic results on a synthetic carpet using fairly narrow Taylor Vector VS bowls while bowling diagonally on the green from corner to corner. (I do this to practice the firmer delivery I need on the slower natural grass.)  I could actually see, in the case of some of these misfired bowls, that the bowl tried to get over a seam, failed,

’backed up’, and came at the seam again. Therefore, this observation might not be general but just particular to narrow bowls on a fast  synthetic surface with slightly raised seams. Because changing after one errant bowl has caused me problems before though, I don't think so.  

Desperation Shots to Win at Lawn Bowls

When your team is losing badly to a team that you feel is inferior, the tactic is often to try low percentage shots in order to come back to win. Usual all this achieves is to deepen the hole you are in and widen the margin of defeat. Comebacks are more often the result of the weaker team finally running out of luck and handing over victory; so, it is a better idea to just slow down the game, keep delivering the best percentage bowl and await developments. When the opponents see you starting even a slight comeback they can easily lose concentration and collapse. Keep the pressure on!

I do not mean by this that in the last end, when you need to remove an opposing bowl in order to get the 4 shots you need, you forgo the on-shot because you are only trained for a dead draw. Ultimately you must try to do what you need to do to win. Simply, be sure that it really is the last chance and all the more likely opportunities have been exhausted. In particular, be sure it will not be possible for the opponents to flub victory on their own.

Do You Really want Lawn Bowling to be Attractive to Younger People? The Acid Test is Respotting the Jack

Many old-school lawn bowlers affirm repeatedly that they want to encourage young people to take up lawn bowling. But, very often they are not prepared to introduce those modifications to the rules of the game that would encourage younger people to be more enthusiastic. A case in point is the rule about dead ends.

Presently in Ontario, the local rule is that each team is allowed to cause one dead end in a match and that end will be replayed, but after that one dead end, any further dead end caused by the same team gives one point to the opposition. This discourages drive shots.  The tactical merit of drive shots aside, drives are exciting, dramatic, and are practiced more by younger bowlers than by older. Thus, favoring a rule that discourages drives, encourages the view that lawn bowls is an old persons’ game-sort of shuffle board with wheels!

It is not as if there is no good alternative that would limit matches to the specified number of games while not penalizing heavy shots. Respotting the jack to a preset spot if it is driven out of bounds is already used by professional bowlers and serves well to limit game durations. The change was actually introduced to make bowls more suitable for television. It just happens to be something that would make bowls more youth friendly. The trouble is that the senior members who run local tournaments, very often, on their own initiative, just opt for the rule that penalizes the team that sends the jack out of bounds.

Measuring at Lawn Bowls

As a novice, like myself, becomes better (and better known) at his home club (s)he will be drawn in fun roll-ups to play positions other than lead. If you are asked to be vice-skip you will need to be able to measure properly. Besides a measure and chalk always carry a small towel. It is not only good for drying/cleaning bowls, but should also be used when measuring for more than one point. Lay the towel on the ground and place each scoring bowl onto the towel. This avoids confusion and ensures that a bowl already counted and set aside is not accidentally measured again. Get into the habit of doing this all the time, not only in tournaments. Bowls that are not scoring but are just in the way  can be taken aside well away from the scoring zone.

Either vice can ask for a measure, and their opposite number cannot refuse the request. Some vices are not above exerting a little psychological pressure at this stage, by making it very clear to their opposite number particularly if (s)he has not been bowling multi years, that there is absolutely no need for a measure and it is blindingly obvious which bowl is the winner. On the other hand, it is not unknown, when a measure has been insisted upon, for the “bully” to be proved wrong!

Measuring Tapes

Before beginning measuring, place wedges under any bowls that will be considered in the count that look as if they could fall over. It is important that they not fall until the measuring is complete. Wedges can be made from the corks of empty wine bottles. Preparing wedges can be fun- particularly the drinking!

There are two types of measurement devices in general use. String measures are generally preferred in competitive play but some players regret this trend because it is far easier to cheat with a string measure than with a metal tape. Make sure that the distance measured between jack and bowl is the shortest possible. This means that the measure must be placed in a dead straight line, and that the tip of the tape touches the bowl at the point closest to the jack. It is possible for a player to cheat at this stage by measuring the two bowls at different points, such that one of them is measured too low, or to one side (or see above wrt misaligning the tape the case). It only takes a millimeter of difference to change which bowl is closer, and a cheating player can find that millimeter very easily! When you are not the measurer be a careful observer. If it is crucial ask to perform the measurement again yourself.

It is sometimes necessary to repeat the measuring procedure, and the other vice may wish to check the result for himself/herself. The two players must always agree on the result, which is usually signaled by the conceding player pushing away the opposing bowl that is closer, followed by the winning side picking up the jack.

Calipers can be used when bowl and jack are too close to get the measuring device between the bowls. Good calipers have a screw adjustment and can be purchased from any specialty bowls shop online, such as shotbowl.

http://www.shotbowl.co.uk/Calipers.aspx

With calipers, try not to get the measure too accurate. Nine times out of ten you don't need to touch both objects. You are just trying using the calipers to make obvious any difference between the two gaps. This can be done while still avoiding contact of the calipers with the jack. Always use the bowl which is heavier as your stable object.  You can run one leg of the caliper down the bowl safely without it moving but the jack should not be touched.

Most standard string or tape measurement tools include some form of calipers but these are very crude and can lead to troubles. A referee probably has the more precise screw calipers. Calipers require practice to use properly. Firstly, place them below the gap between the bowl and jack. Let the back of the caliper rest near or on the ground and raise the points upwards. Withdraw the caliper away from the bowls and jack to make adjustments. You should never make adjustments while the calipers are still resting between the bowl and jack.

For even closer measurements when two competing bowls both seem in contact with the jack, to determine whether both are actually resting on the jack you can take a dollar bill or any smooth sheet of paper and try to slide it, in turn, between each bowl and the jack. If the paper moves easily between jack and bowl they are not resting on each other. If it will not slide easily, that bowl and jack are touching.

If one player is measuring and moves jack and/or bowl the opposite number must be the one restoring that bowl or jack. There is little you can do to prevent him/her from restoring it closer than it was (in your opinion). For this reason, there are some folks who always ask the opponent to do the measuring. Others always ask the umpire, marker, or some neutral person. 

When using a string or tape measure it is not a bad idea to never actually touch the jack but be about a half mm off, because it’s far easier to accidentally move the jack than the bowl. Also, a player should not place a wedge against the jack because if the jack has moved the opponent can reposition it. Remember the idea of measuring is to be able to see the difference between the two lengths rather than putting a number on those lengths themselves. If you measure both distances holding the measure about a half mm from the jack, but not touching, and you cannot still decide, call the umpire or someone neutral to measure.

It can happen, even when everything is legitimate that no decision can be reached and the bowls in question are declared to be exactly the same distance from the jack. If the measure is for second (etc) bowl, it is not counted in the score. If the measure was for the shot bowl, neither side is allowed to score; the end is counted as having been played (i.e. it is not a dead end) but no score is recorded. In other jurisdictions, each side in this situation receives one point and the end counts. In continuing on with the match, the side that had led off during the end will continue to lead for the next one.

If the measurer touches the jack which wobbles and the other vice says “my shot”. You can say, “No, you put it back and we’ll remeasure.” Whether it is the bowl or the jack that is moved don’t just let your opponent claim anything. Get him or her to re-position the jack. At least that way you have a half chance of them getting it back in the correct spot. 

If you are playing singles you can ask the marker for assistance either before or after you've tried to measure. (Don't forget the marker must not push out a shot bowl; he can only point to what in his opinion are shots leaving the option for an umpire to be called.)

Measuring for yourselves first before calling outside help seems like the common sense approach. If you can reach an agreement, then no one else need be disturbed. If skips agree to ask another uninvolved player that person becomes de facto the umpire. Once you call and agree on a third party to measure,  that decision is final. No objection is valid and any objection is unsportsmanlike. You cannot get any other decision. Once an umpire or neutral party is measuring it is good etiquette to leave the head and not watch. Indeed, there is no point in watching. Even if there is a grievous error against you, you will just upset yourself; where nothing can be done. 

Only an umpire should resort to wedging the jack! Even so it is not recommended by official lawn bowling associations unless especially difficult conditions prevail such as very high winds or a jack at risk at the edge of the ditch.

Remember Rule 40.5 from the Crystal Lawn Bowling Rules. When measuring between a jack in the ditch and a bowl on the green or a jack on the green and a bowl in the ditch, the measurement should be carried out using a flexible or string measure whenever possible.

Make the fewest measurements possible for determining the score in an end

In most dispositions of the head, counting is simple. Even where a measurement is needed it is most often only between two bowls; however, situations more complicated can arise. To avoid becoming confused and to use the measuring tape as little as is necessary to establish the score, the following rules are useful.

1.       Decide which bowl is shot. This will involve measuring one distance between a candidate and the jack and comparing it to the distances for other shot candidates. This is done by choosing the shorter distance among the first two and comparing it with that of the next candidate and so on.

2.       Place the shot bowl on a towel to indicate that it is measured and will count.

3.       Remove any other undisputed counting bowls of the same team that has the shot bowl by placing them on the cloth.

4.       Find the closest bowl belonging to the team that did not have the shot bowl. If there are several bowls that might be the closest bowl belonging to the team that does not hold shot, measure among these contending bowls to find out which is the closest.

5.       Using this measurement find any other bowls belonging to the team holding shot that are closer than this measurement and place each of these bowls on the towel.

6.       Count the bowls on the towel. This is the score for the team that had shot.

I will illustrate this with some examples.

Example #1

Bowls 1, 2, and 3 are undisputed counters for the blue team. Place them on the towel. Measure 4 and compare it with 5. Choose the closer. If it is 4 then compare 4 with 6. If it is 5 that is closer, measure 5 and compare it with 6. Whichever of 4,5 or 6 is the closest, take that measure and compare it in turn with 7, 8, 9 and then 10. Each of 7, 8, 9 and 10 that is closer than the best of 4,5 and 6 is placed on the towel. The number of bowls on the towel is the correct score for the blue team.

Example #2

The blue team has shot indisputably. Place bowl 1 on the towel. Measure 2 and compare with 3. If the green 2 is closer than 3, the blue team scores 1. If the blue 3 is closer than 2. Place bowl 2 on the towel. The next closest bowl in 3. The blue team scores the two bowls on the towel.     

Example #3

The green team has three undisputed closer bowls. Place these on the towel.

Measure among 4, 7, 8, 9, and 10 to find which is the closest blue bowl among them. Compare the shortest of these measurements against 5. If 5 is closer place, 5 on the towel. Compare it now with 6. If 6 is closer, place 6 on the towel. Count the bowls on the towel. This is the score for the green team.

Further information about measuring can be found at https://greenbowler.blogspot.com/2021/04/measuring-in-close-disputed-ends-at.html

Lawn Bowl Delivery Instruction at Turramurra

This novice bowler has taken advantage of staying for the winter, within 500 meters of the Turramurra Lawn Bowling Club, in Sydney Australia to receive coaching on my bowling delivery.

My First Lesson

The most fundamental recommended change was not to crouch at the beginning of delivery but to stand with my legs straight but with my trunk slightly bent forward at the waist. This will pay off, it was explained to me, not so much now when I am still quite physically fit, but as I grow older, when I will not need to change my delivery to take into consideration increasing infirmities. Starting the delivery without crouching is the least stressful style.

A second significant observation of the coach was that too often my nonbowling arm ends up out in the air rather than resting consistently on the knee of the advancing leg. So now, for a non-crouch delivery, the non-bowling hand starts out with the fingers resting lightly at about the bottom of my pocket on the thigh of the leg that will step forward and ends up resting lightly on the knee of that forward leg.

The third significant change relates to the placement of my feet before delivery. Instead of standing with feet essentially together, it was advocated that my advancing foot should begin one-half a shoe length forward of my anchor foot. When I tried this combined with an upright starting stance, I  found that this caused almost all my weight to remain on my anchor foot throughout the delivery, automatically, while before I had to make a conscious effort to keep my weight predominantly on this foot; thus, this new modification again simplified my delivery.

I had seen in bowling videos on U-tube that many top bowlers tuck the knee of their anchor leg in behind the heel of their advancing leg when they deliver. I was not finding this necessary and so I asked the coach why this happened. He explained that I was not doing it because I was stepping forward parallel to the aim line rather than stepping more towards the aim line; that is directly in front of my anchor foot. If I were to step more towards the aim line according to theory my eyes would be directly over the aim line and I would improve the proportion of bowls passing cleanly through my stare point.

My Second Lesson 

I had the good fortune to have another lesson from a different teacher, Geoff Hamilton, who is the club champion and the CEO of the Turramurra Lawn Bowling Club. In my second lesson, my instructor said that he had been watching me practicing in a roll-up. His main concern was that I was still in too much of a crouch. He wanted me to stand up straight when I stepped onto the mat with my feet positioned as previously described but with a slight flexing of the knees and the weight on the balls of my feet so that I inclined slightly forward. (I will continue to try to keep most of my weight on my anchor foot.) He again emphasized that the goal was to have a delivery that would not need to change as I aged and acquired more aches and pains.

His next criticism was that after releasing the bowl I stepped back onto the mat rather than continuing to move my weight forward with the shot. He said that I should instead draw up my anchor foot so that I would end up standing with both feet out in front of the mat. He stated emphatically that on fast greens consistent weight transfer would be essential for controlling the momentum and hence length of my shots.

The third criticism was that I was flailing in the air with my free hand rather than sliding it down to rest on my advancing knee. After the bowl was released and traveling down the rink was the time to check (i) whether my delivering arm was raised no higher than my advancing knee (ii) that my anchor knee was just behind my advancing foot and (iii) that my non-bowling hand was resting on my knee. Even so, the number one job, once the bowl was released, was to notice whether the stare point was being hit and if not by how much and in which direction the miss occurred so it could be correlated with the final bowl position.

Bowls at Turramurra, Australia

The novice bowling author is on an extended holiday in Sydney Australia until March.

The grass is faster here than on the synthetic surface at James Garden and much, much faster than the grass at Willowdale, but this is the least of the differences in play between here and Toronto. In Australia, the pair’s game is played with the leads opening with two bowls each, then the skips deliver two bowls; then the leads return to the mat and deliver their last two bowls, and finally the skips come back and grass their last two bowls. Thus, there is twice as much walking back and forth on the rink as in Canada.

One might think the game would proceed more slowly but it actually goes faster because, unlike in Canada, each rink has a marked center line that extends out from the two-meter T for eight meters at each end. This eliminates any signaling between the leads and skips concerning the centering either of the mat or the jack before the beginning of each end.

The presence of the marked center line creates several differences in how play usually evolves. In Canada, because of the problem centering the mat if it is moved up the green, most ends end up being played with bowls delivered from the 2-meter mark or no more than 4 feet further up the green. At Turramurra, and perhaps elsewhere in Australia, there is less tactical play with changes to the distance the jack is delivered and much more involving the location of the mat. In the first game I played in Australia, (social not competitive) both skips left it pretty well up to the leads to decide on the placement of the mat and the distance that the jack was delivered. In Canada, even in a social game, play would pause until the skip in possession of the mat came down the rink to the place where the jack was supposed to be delivered. The skip expects or more often just hopes the lead will deliver the jack close to where (s)he stands. The skip I played with simply waited near the forward ditch for the mat to be placed and jack to be tossed down seemingly at my discretion. Then they quickly moved the jack onto the center line for the first lead bowl.

At Turramurra, and perhaps in all of Australia, players do not use bowl rakes to gather the bowls when the end is over but the bowls are kicked back to behind the mat placement for the next end. In Canada as far as I have seen, rakes are used except for singles matches. As a consequence, in Australia, it seems that for the convenience of the bowlers, the mat is rarely placed at the 2-meter line, but almost always at least 4 meters more up the rink. Since very often the previous head might be as far as 10 meters from the forward ditch if the mat for the coming end is now placed 6 meters from the ditch, the bowls only need to be kicked a short distance. If the mat were placed at the 2-meter mark, the bowls would need to be kicked inconveniently far and there would be an increased chance that a bowl would end up gathering some sand in the ditch before it could be properly marshaled.

There is another reason that moving the mat might be discouraged by Canadian conditions of play. Ground sheets are used much more in Canada than in Australia. From reading the comments written by Australians on the blog, Julian Haynes Bowls, many feel that if conditions require ground sheets, play should be canceled. This is not the case in Canada.  In many places in Canada, the weather is quite variable throughout the bowls season. There are more days when it rains at least some of the time. Furthermore, the season, which is only from May to October to begin with, is extended by using ground sheets more toward the end of the season as the weather deteriorates. There also seems to be much heavier morning dew, at least in the Toronto area where I am from, and it doesn’t ‘burn off ‘ until about 10:30AM which is well after most tournaments have begun. According to the World Bowls Crystal Mark Second Edition rules, ground sheets are placed on each rink by the groundskeeper if in his opinion required and cannot be moved or removed except by agreement from the groundskeeper. Moreover, the rules further  state that the mat must remain placed with its front edge aligned with the back edge of the ground sheet. As a result, groundsheets take mat movements out of the game.

With a marked center line, the greater movement of the mat has a significant effect on determining the aim line. In Canada, some choose the aim line by selecting a particular distinct point on or beyond the forward bank and creating an imaginary aiming line that passes through that point; then carefully looking back along that line they find a stare point conveniently in front of the mat. The difficulty with this method is that the aiming line needs to be changed whenever the mat is moved significantly forward or back. Since significant mat movement is rarer in a Canadian social game, this is not a burden. In Australia, such changes in mat placement are more the rule than the exception, so, bowlers that use the above method are handicapped. At the same time, players who apply a method based on bowling at a fixed angle to the centerline are aided by the existence of a clearly marked center line. The simplest method of choosing the proper line for delivering bowls to the jack in Australia is by bowling at the correct angle off the center line because that angle is not changed when the mat position is varied!   All your attention can be directed at getting the correct weight for your shots.

Cultural Aspects of the Game

At the Turramurra Bowling Club in Sydney Australia many more men are bowling than women, while at James Gardens in Toronto, there are more ladies than gents. Mixed bowling is the most common bowls game in Canada but it seems that the men far outnumber the ladies at Turramurra. Even more noteworthy is the extent to which men and women do not mix down under. Ladies play on ladies' days and hardly make an appearance at the club at other times. This may be connected with the fact that bowling clubs in Australia typically have a bar and some slot machines, but this is just a tentative hypothesis. There are also hints that the men prefer male-only games because they can use rougher language, drive more often, and perhaps drink more freely afterward.

It appears that bowls is much more expensive to play here in Australia.  If you want to play often you must play in an organized game that costs between $15-20 per player. This outlay includes some lunch, and coffee or tea perhaps a couple of times during the day. For the men, there is also the expense of a traditional alcoholic beverage for yourself and your opposite number after the contest. This is not to say that these extras do not have value but just that they are not optional. They are inherent aspects of the entertainment package. In Canada, for regular weekly scheduled in-house games, if you want food you bring a lunch, and tea and coffee are supplied by the club. Since almost all clubs are unlicensed, there is simply no opportunity to imbibe on the premises. You can pay $0.50 for a soft drink from the club frig or drink from the water fountain. Canadian bowls clubs more closely resemble an outdoor skating shack; the Australian bowls club is more like a golf country club!