Another Singles Strategy

In the professional indoor lawn bowling match that you can watch on YouTube, the marker tells the players the length of the jack. In your club game it is your guesstimate.

This difference is the basis for a match strategy that you might find profitable. I used it this year in winning the James Gardens mens' singles club championship. Because the length of jack is not announced by the marker, the player who bowls the jack has an advantage not available in the professional contest. If you delivered it, you have a somewhat better idea of its length than your opponent because you have just felt the weight of that delivery. If you have practiced delivering a particular weight, you know rather precisely the correct velocity to provide to your first bowl.

Furthermore, by frequently moving the mat, you can continue to deliver that same length, yet disguise it so that your opponent cannot easily see that there is no change in length. For example, in my final match at James Gardens, I delivered short 23 meter jacks from mat positions at 2 meters, 6 meters and 10 meters out from the rear ditch. My opponent had to figure out the proper weight for each of these, but I knew from rolling the jack that every one of these was close to 23 meters away. Because I kept winning ends, I retained the jack and could keep applying the strategy.

Delivering the jack from an mat position except 2 meters from the back ditch is already unusual in Canada (probably because the center of the rink is not marked with a line), so placing the mat at 4 or 10 meters from the ditch is already surprising for an opponent. Players rarely practice such deliveries. Moreover, questioning whether a jack is 21 meters from the front edge of the mat is much more uncertain when the hog line cannot be used to judge it.