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.