The Drawmaster’s Dilemma in Social Lawn Bowls: the Swing Lead and a Proposed Alternative

The person who arranges the teams for games of social bowls at the local lawn bowling club never faces all the problems that the draw master at an open tournament encounters, but there is one problem this club volunteer faces more often, indeed, at least half the time: what to do when you have an odd number who want to play?

The answer, wherever I have gone in the world, is to have a ‘swing lead’. A swing lead delivers bowls for each team alternately. In some places, the number of bowls that the lead delivers is reduced. For example, in a game of triples a swing lead may play two bowls for each side rather than the three bowls that a regular lead would play. Half of the swing lead’s bowls are marked with tape and the other half have none. This is so, at the completion of each end, the lead bowls delivered for each side can be identified for the scoring.

Some players don’t mind being in a game where there is a swing lead; others hate it. Some would rather not play than participate in a game with a swing lead! There are certainly disadvantages. When starting a game with a swing lead the skip should always give away the mat because you want the swing lead to deliver bowls for your side after learning weight and line from the other side’s bowls. 

Looking at the situation another way, the swing lead bowler gets no thrill of competition because (s)he is not up against any opponent but is part of both teams. All the swing lead can do is practice technique. Also, the swing lead is doing the raking at every end.

I would like to propose an alternative applicable to games of triples; the most common social game.
A team of four players can compete against a regular triples team. Each team will deliver 9 bowls as in regular triples, the difference being that for the team of four, the lead will deliver two bowls, the second two bowls, the vice two bowls, and the skip the usual three bowls.  For the three-person team, each member will deliver three bowls as usual. Each team will have grassed nine bowls in each end. In this way, seven players will be engaged on one rink and each player will be part of just one team.

The drawmaster should intentionally make up the team of four with stronger players because it is a disadvantage for any team member to only play two rather than three bowls.