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.