Bowls Tactics borrowing from Lachlan Tighe

Head analysis does not consider either the skill level or the confidence of the person who is being asked to make the shot(s). Neither the score nor the ends to play is usually considered in these hypothetical situations. The bias of bowls and the speed of the green are left out. Consequently there will always be disagreement over what should be played.

Readers should be inspired to share their own thinking in the Comments.

Four different head positions are analyzed assuming that the front ditch is, in turn, in the North(N), South (S), West (W)and East(E) of the diagram. The different orientations create four different tactical situations. The Skips are designated as White and Cross. Their bowls are respectively empty orange circles and purple circles with a cross on them. The small solid orange circle is the jack. The jack is on the center line two meters from the ditch. None of White’s bowls are touchers. White holds three shots. Each side has a bowl remaining but Cross has the last shot. 

North

The ditch is a meter behind the Cross bowls. Taken in this direction this is a problem set by Lachlan Tighe  who describes 15 different options for White. The positioning is deceptive. There are few locations the jack can realistically move short of the line formed by the three Cross bowls where Cross can score even two. The danger arises if the jack is taken anywhere past these bowls up to and including the ditch. A drive or running shot that touches the jack can then score three or four. The best defense is a bowl by White from the left with the primary objective to move White’s leftmost bowl back at least into the line and splitting the Cross bowls. If the shot is missed on the left the bowl could end up grouped with the two Cross bowls on the left which provides some cover.  Follow the link to see all the possibilities without any recommended choice.

 South

White can expect cross to drive into the pocket of White’s two rightmost bowls and the jack white should draw into a location in front of the jack and in the line of Cross’s bowls. Ideally this bowl will count but if it is a bit short that won’t matter.

West

Cross will have to execute a long trail to get more than two. Draw from the left. Since you are up three,  if you err be a touch wide. White will be happy to end up in Cross’s draw. Let Cross be the one to push up his own short bowl on the right, don’t risk doing it for him

East

White should try to rest Cross’s backmost bowl, delivering from the left. White should not draw behind the jack from the right. You do not want to provide a shoulder which could give Cross a wick in with his last bowl or even a bowl on which Cross can chop and lie from the right for second shot. Cross could be down four when he comes to the mat.

Leading at Bowls: How I yearn to deliver the Jack

You know what I would like to do? I’d like to play lead for a good pairs, triples, or fours team. I thought, when I started lawn bowling, that I would be a lead for five or six years! I looked forward to it. But it hardly ever happened. In every club I’ve ever  played at in Canada, players are pushed up the tagboard, to second, then vice, then skip, based on relative skill, not competence; because you know the rules; because you know how to measure; because you know how to fill out a scorecard; because you’ve been around a long time. You must go up because new members are joining and we must make room for them at the bottom- as leads.

I will soon go to Portugal to play while winter occupies Canada. Out of politeness, I tell them there I can play in any position- whatever works for the drawmaster. “Would you be a skip?” they ask. Once I answer yes to that, I’m most often a skip and never again a lead.

Now Australia is different. At Turramurra (North Sydney) there are enough excellent players to provide ‘real’ skips for every rink, even at the lower pennant levels where the selector properly placed me. A ‘real’ skip is someone who cares where the mat is set and cares how long the jack is delivered. Still, there are enough poorer players, even in Australia, that I am a second for a fours team. Even here leading eludes me.

After five years lawn bowling I have never seen any other person practicing delivering jacks. It’s as if it didn’t matter.  

Christmas Bowl's Head Analyses

Head analysis does not consider either the skill level or the confidence of the person who is being asked to make the shot(s). Neither the score nor the ends to play is usually considered in these hypothetical situations. The bias of bowls and the speed of the green are left out. Consequently there will always be disagreement over what should be played.

Readers should be inspired to share their own thinking in the Comments.

Four different head positions are analyzed assuming that the front ditch is, in turn, in the North(N), South (S), West (W)and East(E) of diagram A. The different orientations create four different tactical situations. The Skips are designated as White and Cross. Their bowls are respectively empty orange circles and purple circles with a cross on them. The small solid orange circle is the jack.

 A North

White alone has a single bowl to play and sits two with four thirds against.  A useful rule is: when you are up don’t be narrow. That is: don’t run through the head and change anything when are already winning the end. White can draw from either the left or the right. If White must score three he should draw from the right with the object to chop and lie on Cross’s bowl at three o’clock. Resting on White’s short counter at 6 o’clock or trailing the jack will also score three. There is a low probability downside of promoting Cross’s 3^rd at 3 o’clock.

If White can be happy with 2 while retaining some chance for 3 the draw on the left side is preferred.

A South

White has a single bowl to play and sits two with four thirds against.  The situation is not changed from AN. Here draw from the left if you must have three. Otherwise draw from the right.

A West

In this head, Cross has a short bowl in front of the jack. Unless it is the final end and White must score three, refuse your last bowl and take a sure two.  If going for three draw from the left aiming to rest on your counter at 9 o’clock. Hitting Cross’s bowl at 10 o’clock may still give the score you need.

A East

In this head the bowls are strung out from side to side at approximate jack length. White has a single bowl to play and sits two with four thirds against.  Draw from the right. White’s bowl at 3 o’clock will partly shield the jack. Resting on this bowl or wicking off Cross’s bowl at 4 o’clock all score three. Drawing from the left has more risk to move the jack back to Cross’s backest bowl.

Blogging in 2017

                           Author and wife at Vilamoura LBC winter 2016


This New Year’s Eve, my wife and I will once again fly off to Vilamoura Portugal to spend the next three months, until the ice and snow of winter start to depart from southern Canada. I have the understanding with my wife,  that she can go anywhere she wants to travel for the winter so long as there is lawn bowling there! We are going back to the Algarve in Portugal because, for a stay of several months, it is the most economical cost when both travel  and living expenses are taken together.

Once again we will be bowling out of two bowls clubs: the Vilamoura LBC  in Vilamoura, and the Valverde LBC in Almancil. The Vilamoura club will lend you bowls. The Valverde club rents you bowls for one Euro. If you don't mind bowls with a standard draw there is plenty of choice. If you want narrow bowls, you had best bring your own. I have no problem using what is available. Both clubs are very welcoming, operate in English entirely, and have lovingly cared for greens. The temperature range beside the ocean in the Algarve region is 12-19 °C which is just jacket or sweater weather for Canada.  Precipitation is only sporadic and transient. There is rarely a day with persistent all day rain.

 I will be taking my computer with me so that I can continue my blogging from Portugal. Talk to you all from there starting in January.  

Bowls Tactics:When You are being Outplayed as Lead or in Singles

According to a tactical suggestion on one on-line lawn bowling site

 https://assets.sportstg.com/assets/console/document/documents/20160724053820Tactics_in_Lawn_Bowls.pdf

 “When being outplayed, try and change your opponent from the hand which is playing well for him. This can be done by changing to your opponent’s hand, dropping short, but only slightly in his draw.” This site, however, also suggests, “When down never be wide.”

 I assume that when you are being outplayed and see a need to act then  you are most often down in the end you are playing; therefore, applying the above second recommendation  you shouldn’t be wide. But if you hope to end up in your opponent’s draw and you have switched to the same hand as him, you must necessarily tend to be a bit wide (to get into that draw arc). Isn’t there a contradiction here?

It seems more logical to me that if you have been bowling on the opposite hand to an opponent who is ‘consistently outplaying you’ as this suggestion specifies, the advice should be to stay on the hand you have been bowling and start erring on the side of being narrower, so that, if you are short, your bowl has the possibility of ending up in your adversary’s draw.

Perhaps I am missing something here. Anyway, the above link provides lots of other good teachings.

Reminder before Delivering your Lawn Bowl: Visualize, Length, Line, Slow, Step, Smooth (VL2S3)

I wanted some mantra that would remind me just before each delivery of the most important elements of good performance. For me, it is six words.

Visualize
 Visualize the path of the bowl going from your hand to its intended target point. This helps fine-tune your rhythm speed.

Length  
Look carefully at the jack distance. Which is the closest of your natural lengths to this distance?

Line
Find and stare at your aim point on your aim line.

Slow 
This reminds me that the backswing is slow like drawing the bow in archery.

Step 
This reminds me that I need to firmly plant my advancing foot before the forward arm motion begins.

Smooth
 This reminds me that the motion needs to be smooth, not jerky, if it is going to be reproducible.

Why Do the Best Bowlers Break Off Their Deliveries more than I do?

If you watch the world’s best lawn bowlers on Youtube it is not  unusual to see one of them break-off his delivery and then restart his entire delivery routine. Usually the commentator proposes that some movement either in the crowd or by a photographer has broken the bowler’s concentration. My question is this: Why don’t ordinary bowlers do this to the same extent?

 I think we ought to but we haven’t been taught to- and we haven’t practiced to do so. I am certainly very familiar with the experience of letting a bowl go and realizing immediately that I had lost my concentration part way into the swing. The problem is that I have not trained myself to break it off. I just continue an already doomed delivery hoping beyond hope that some bump in the green or unplanned wick will correct my wayward bowl. 

Jack Delivery at Lawn Bowls: What I think I see David Corkill Doing

David Corkill is the BBC lawn bowls commentator and a good player himself. On Youtube I was watching him  delivering the jack in the 2016 Scottish Championship and I think I detected something that can benefit ordinary bowlers particularly those who play on grass.

David seemed to be rolling the jack intentionally off the center line.  I believe this action was intentional because he was not having difficulty with line in his regular bowl deliveries. Why was he doing this? There are two possibilities I can think of. (Actually I had already thought of both of these but had never seen anyone else intentionally delivering the jack away from the center.) First, delivering the jack towards the junction of the boundary and the front ditch makes it less likely that you will accidentally ditch the jack, since the path from the center of the mat to the eventual stopping point of the jack will be slightly longer. (It passes across as well as down the rink.) Second, by carefully watching the path of the jack as it moves in this path you can get a better insight for whatever slight sloping may exist. Although this may be very little on the carpet, a player can expect to discover some more significant variations on a grass rink. This jack path would work better for this because delivering the jack off-center more closely approximates the actual curved path of a bowl.

To see the behavior of Corkill view the middle ends of the first set in the following video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gZQ6k4L9UU&t=5085s

If You Accept that Length is More Important than Line, You Should Take the Mat in the First End

I

In the first end of most lawn bowling matches in Ontario, Canada, there there are no trial ends.  Everything about the rinkmay be unknown. as a consequence, your first bowl is  least likely to end up as a counter. Still, because many experts believe that length is 9 times more important than line, you should take the mat and bowl the jack because delivering the jack will give you an good idea of the best opening weight. A bowl rolled with the same velocity as and immediately following the jack almost certainly will end up behind the jack and even if you misjudge the line badly your bowl will be in place to catch a displaced jack. Moreover, because the proper line is not yet known by either side, narrow bowls are more likely in this opening end and it is narrow bowls that can knock the jack backwards.

Lawn Bowling Practice:Quantifying Progress

The Author delivers

It is important to measure how you are doing with your lawn bowls. There are a number of methods of quantifying your draw bowling skill. I use a method I have devised called measuring the 'median of medians'. The method is described:

http://greenbowler.blogspot.ca/2013/04/median-of-medians-as-measure-of.html

I bowl three bowls to a centered jack at random lengths and measure the second-best bowl's distance from the jack. This is repeated between 9 and 15 times. The median value of these recorded bowls is the 'median of medians'. I just finished a test on the James Gardens synthetic surface which is running about 15 seconds. My 'median of medians' value was 49 inches or just about 4 feet. This is the second-best I have ever recorded. My best bowl in each end was approximately twice as good, meaning that a bowl better than two feet from the jack would usually be needed for an opponent to score. 

Bowls Strategy and Tactics: Does Shot Selection Depend Upon Skill Level?

I watch Youtube lawn bowling videos trying to learn from the shot selections made by the best players. Whether this is useful however depends, I think, upon the answer to the question, “Is correct shot selection dependent upon skill level?” That is to say,“ If I can only draw within an average two feet of a target, should I try the same shot as say Paul Foster who can bowl on average within 3 inches?”

Tacticians who write books tell us that for each shot we contemplate we should consider the risk/reward ratio. If this is true and it does make sense. the answer hinges on the answer to a second question: “Are there bowls positions where the risk/reward ratio changes depending upon the skill level of the bowler?” This latter question is easier to answer. I can fabricate a simple  situation that will make this point clearly.

I have the last bowl. The jack is in the ditch. My opponent sits four. One counter is four feet from the ditch. Three more counting bowls are eight feet from the ditch. Because I could easily accidentally ditch my bowl and go down four if I try to get shot (since my average error is two feet), I should simply stay out of the ditch and make sure I have second so I will only go down one. A professional, who can bowl within inches of his target, can play to get shot without undue risk.  So yes- risk/reward ratios for each tactical situation depend upon the bowler’s precision.

Does this mean an average bowler can learn nothing from the tactical choices made by a champion? No. The factors that are to be considered are the same for both. The terms in the weighing equation are the same but the weight (the likelihood or importance) of each term is different depending upon skill level. We should be able to enumerate to ourselves the different considerations that the pros are thinking about. We should then have a good chance to understand their selection of shot so long as we understand their level of precision. We should also have a fair idea where the selection the champion chooses will differ from what we ought to try in the same situation.

The video commentator will often give the viewer a ‘heads up’ where the professional’s selection differs from what a player of lower class might choose. How often have I heard something like, “This is a situation where only Marshall would back himself to draw the shot.” In other words, if you are an ordinary mortal, don’t try this!

My Lawn Bowls Delivery After Five Years of Trials

Recently I bowled in a pair’s tournament against my wife.  Fortuitously, because she was ’leading’ and I was ‘skipping’, we were always at opposite ends of the rink. The evening following the match, my wife told me that the particular background for the rink we were playing on enabled her to clearly see small movements of my trunk and that about 40% of the time my body position while I was taking my line differed from its position during my actual delivery; furthermore, when it did not deviate, my shots were clearly more effective.

Following from this sharp observation I have simplified my delivery so as to eliminate this difference. Subsequently, in practices, when I worked at keeping line and length constant, my bowls ended much more closely grouped than ever before.

As I have said repeatedly, one should on balance resist changing one’s delivery because unlearning routine is difficult; however, the changes in this case did not add, but removed, elements of my delivery routine while notably improving the outcomes.

What is left:

1.     Standing behind the mat: I decide on the shot; grip the bowl appropriately https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dr5UQ6XeB0

I imagine the path of the bowl from mat to target.

2.     I step onto the mat and assume the Shooters’ Stance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b9cKvPeWj4&t=121s .

3.     I bend forward from the waist keeping both legs straight and steady my bowl with my free hand at knee height and just beside the knee of my forward foot.

4.     With my head over the aim line, I look along this imaginary line and select and hold a stare point about 5 meters in front of the mat.

5.     I cock my wrist. http://greenbowler.blogspot.ca/2015/11/using-cocked-wrist-in-lawn-bowl-delivery.html

6.     I move my non-bowling hand from supporting the bowl onto the knee of the leg that will be advancing.

7.    Without straightening up I slowly draw the bowl back along the aim line like an archer drawing a bow.

8.     Just before I begin the forward pendulum swing, as I am completing my backswing, I step forward and plant my advancing foot.

9.     With my wrist still cocked, I release the bowl at the bottom of the swing.

                    I follow through but do not add rotation to the bowl either with my wrist or fingers (my bowling arm should finish at an angle of about 45 degrees to the ground).

 AAs I swing, my body weight should move forward so that I tend to take a step off the front of the mat after the bowl is released.

Forget About Adding or Subtracting a Yard for Now

Fairly often I see lawn bowlers practicing adding or subtracting a yard to their deliveries on a rink with cut up yellow tennis balls marking the intervals.  I’ve done it myself. My judgment: it’s a waste of time until you can consistently deliver four bowls the same length (within a yard).  This was so obvious once I thought about it. Delivering with exactly the same weight can be expected to be much, much easier than adding or subtracting weight, but who can consistently do it?  Certainly not me- yet. 

The Shooter’s Stance in Bowls can End Crouching to get a Stare Point

In videos of the legendary David Bryant, we see him squatting on the mat, unlit pipe between his teeth, picking out his line.

I also had a tendency to bend over from the waist to bring my eyes closer to the ground when taking my line and stare point. Then I would stand up straight and begin my bowl delivery. After being defeated 24-3 in an open singles encounter at the Willowdale Lawn Bowling Club, my talented and experienced opponent volunteered (after I agreed that I wanted advice) that I should stop this wasteful and time-consuming practice. With a bit of experience, I was advised, just as good a stare point can be achieved from a fully erect posture.

This is not the first time, I have been thus advised. My Canadian coach has been after me about it and a helpful opposing skip at the Turramurra LBC also suggested that I bowl within seven seconds of taking my line, because he said that the longer one tries to hold a stare point the more it will be distorted.

My resistance to this advice came because I was convinced that at least I must focus on something that I can see very distinctly and so that object cannot be more than 5 meters in front of the mat. Following this, selecting that point and making sure it was on my aim line could not be an instantaneous reflex judgment.

Since adopting the shooters’ stance no special aids are needed to pick out the correct line because having your eye directly over the aim line makes it easier. This is just another benefit of the amazing shooters’ stance.

Lawn Bowls is a Target Sport like Archery; so try a Slow, Controlled, Back Swing in the Delivery

There is no correlation between how rapidly you take your bowl back in the backswing and how much forward-directed force is provided to your delivery. No matter how rapidly you draw it back, the bowl becomes motionless at the top of the pendulum swing. Therefore, whatever velocity the bowl is intended to have must arise from the acceleration from both the forward swing and forward body motion. Rapidly drawing your bowl back has no advantage.

Nonetheless, drawing your bowl back quickly has disadvantages.  First, your bowl is less likely to remain directly above the backward extension of your aim line and as a consequence your bowl will not pass through your stare point on the aim line when you swing your arm forward.  Second, if proper elevation is part of the means by which you control length, the accuracy of your delivery weight will be reduced.

So your lawn bowling backswing should be performed with the same care as an archer draws his bow.

Lawn Bowls Tactics: When Not to Bowl to Get Shot

There are four tactical situations in lawn bowls. The opponents will

(a) hold one or more shots or

(b) they will not

and your skipper can respond by trying to

(i) get a bowl in the count or

(ii) not get a bowl in the count.

Trying to get shot or add another shot is the standard tactical action. Some skips almost always try to get or add a shot with every bowl whether they direct it or play it themselves; so (a)(i) and (b)(i) can be regarded as really the default choices. This article treats situations where the best tactic may well be not to try to get or add a shot.

First I will address the situation where the team does hold shot and the skipper should not try to get another shot.

Situation One- If the team does not have a bowl at the back and the opposition could change from shots down to shots up if they moved the jack back, drawing another bowl on the head may not be the best strategy.

Situation Two- Sometimes when the score for the team or the side is such that a second shot will give the team no advantage whatsoever, the skip should look for and protect against any tactic that would give the opposition a useful number of bowls.

 Situation Three- Play a block. Without moving the jack back, decrease the probability that the opposition can reduce the number of shots held byyour team by seeking to obtain one or more shots blocking the path of the likely opposition bowl that will have that undesirable result.

My second section considers situations where the team does not hold shot and the skipper should not try to get shot.

 Situation Four –Sometimes the opposition holds a shot very close to, or touching, the jack. To move off this shot bowl, the played bowl will need weight that could carry it past the shot bowl. Such bowls - if they miss –commonly leave a head that will make it easier for the opposition to score several shots. Your team will risk less if it tries for second shot and delays trying for shot bowl - until later.

Situation Five - The opposition holds one shot, your team holds several second shots and it is a high percentage shot to obtain shot by pushing out the present shot bowl; however, once this happens the opposition will try to obtain the shot again. If your skip “allows” the opposition to continue to hold shot, the opposition may choose to try for a position bowl or accidentally remove its own shot bowl or fail to add additional counters. That is to say, sometimes it will be better tactically to add close bowls and delay pushing out the shot bowl until the opposition has only one or no bowls left to play. This assumes that skip is quite confident that (s)he will only require one bowl to remove the present shot and this task won’t be made too much more difficult by upcoming opposing bowls.

Situation Six- The opposition holds one shot and your team has only one or two bowls in the head. The team could try a run-through shot to push out the shot bowl; sometimes that heavier shot will result in shot bowl but sometimes it changes the head unfavourably by knocking out your own best bowls. Even though a draw shot has less chance of pushing out the shot bowl, it has a still lower probability of producing a less-favourable position. Thus, it may prove better to try to draw another bowl on the head rather than try the run-through. Because the opposition still holds shot it may become complacent. You can build the head and wait for a later opportunity to remove their shot for a good count.

Situation Seven- Sometimes it will prove better for a player to play a second or later bowl on the same hand and obtain a close bowl rather than changing the player’s hand just because the position of bowls allows the player a better chance to get shot after the change. This is particularly true with lead bowlers.

Situation Eight- Sometimes it will prove better to go one down rather than risk going for shot because an error with an overweight bowl will mean more than one down. The loss of an end by one rarely losses a match! 

Scoring Method Can Determine Tactics in Lawn Bowls

Playing In-house tournaments at the Etobicoke Lawn Bowling Club a different scoring method is used and this requires different game tactics. The scoring is 5 points for a win and one point for each end won. Consequently if the game is close, your side is sitting shot, and the opposition has a close second, it is unwise to deliver the last bowl, if you have it. If you were to remove your shot, you would not just go from one up to one down- a loss of two points; you would also go from one end won to one end lost for a loss of another two points!

Only towards the end of a very close game, where getting the ‘spare’ could realistically save you the match, should you risk delivering your last bowl when holding one shot. Of course, if the opposition ‘s best bowl is not really very close and there is plenty of room to  draw safely without coming near your own shot, you should go ahead with it. Just know what you are risking.

If You are a Palm Bowler Watch Nicky Brett

Nikky Brett

Most bowling coaches teach beginners to play bowls using the grip that they themselves use and the vast preponderance of them use a claw or finger grip in which the thumb on top of the bowl secures it from falling out of their hand on the back-swing. Many palm bowlers as a consequence of their less firm grip use little or no back-swing and push their bowls down the rink. There is an alternative. You can see the delivery by watching any of the Youtube videos of Nicky Brett. Stop the action by freezing frames during his delivery. Push start then stop as quickly as possible to get a clear picture of his technique.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3QECKvG540

You will see that his thumb is not on top of the bowl but rests on the side in the palm grip. In his back-swing he employs the Bryant twist (his palm turns inward and the bowl is prevented from dropping by resting on top of the thumb. The ‘Bryant twist’ also enables the back-swing to go straight back.

Nicky Brett is one of, if not the best lawn bowler in the world. You couldn’t have a better  example! 

Tournament Play and Improvement

Everywhere you look the advice is the same: play with and against the best players you can find to improve quickly. In Canada, team play is not divided by pennants or skill divisions as in Australia. When you play in a tournament you play against the top people, over and over and so you lose over and over.  The more you practice the more pressure you apply to yourself. And of course you expect some improved performance to match the extent of the practice time committed. The more failure, the more practice, the more heightened the expectations, the more serious the disappointment. 

After four years I have to admit this doesn’t work for me.  I have started to play club events almost exclusively. I was appreciated. I got good results playing club bowlers. I relaxed. My draw accuracy and consistency improved in absolute terms.

So, my conclusion is this: if you are not competing in a ‘streamed’ environment where you play against opponents close to your own skill level and where you can advance gradually as you succeed, you should not compete where you will be always defeated . This is not the professional wisdom but it is what I personally find.

That Foot on or over the Mat: Crystal Mark Three

Foot-faulting is Still Possible

I played mixed pairs against a more experienced skip yesterday. After the match, he said, “Stand on the mat as you do when you are ready to deliver a bowl.” When I did, he pointed out that my anchor foot was only partially on the mat. My heel was off the mat. The ball of my foot was on.

“In a playdown  ( Ontario Regional Competition) you would be called for foot faulting,” he said.

“Not according to the new Crystal Mark Third Edition of The World Laws of Bowls,” I told him. “It only requires part of a foot to be on or over the mat at delivery.”

This is an important point. Many more experienced bowlers were brought up with the old foot fault rule: one foot must be entirely on or over the mat.  Bowlers, like myself, who have adopted the ‘shooters’ stance’ will have a greater tendency to have the anchor foot partially off the mat, because that foot is not lined up parallel to their aim line. In any case, calling foot faults was always a tedious business. Whether a player has a full foot or a partial foot on the mat is not going to make a difference to any game’s outcome. The rule exists to confine bowlers to essentially the same starting place for deliveries and this is preserved by the new rule.

Furthermore, the new rule presents more opportunities to ‘use the mat.’ This is the practice of changing the position you are standing on the mat to make small adjustments to your final bowl position, so long as you can repeat the previous delivery exactly.

The Number of ‘Seconds’ at Bowls

Regularly you hear lawn bowlers asking from the mat, “How many up/down are we?” Much less often heard, but just as important, particularly if your side has the last bowl, is the question, “How many seconds do we have?”

When you have multiple seconds, you have the opportunity to drive out the opposing shot bowl with the last bowl and collect a multiple count. If you have two or more seconds you can even risk losing one of your own bowls so long as the opposing shot bowl is also removed.

It is usually important that the target shot bowl should be at least even with or behind the jack, because iff you touch the jack your calculation of the expected profit in the count can change dramatically and adversely. If you have two or more seconds and one is a good second you can even consider driving out the opposing shot bowl when the opponents have the last bowl.

It is easier to connect with a bowl than the smaller jack. The probability of making that contact is enhanced if the distance of the jack from the mat is at least medium or most preferably short.

The 14 Meter Block Shot at Lawn Bowls

I have read that 90% of the natural lawn bowling greens in Canada run below 12 seconds. On such slow grass, the aiming angle for a draw shot is tight. With most bowls, one is aiming close to the boundary marker at the front ditch. A bowl that is sitting in the normal draw just 14 meters in front of the mat can block many shots intended to disrupt the head.  Surprisingly in four years of bowling, I had never seen this intentionally attempted.

Last Thursday night at the Etobicoke LBC I was skipping a triples team and when I arrived at the mat for my deliveries my side was holding three close shots with a few other bowls out front, blocking one of the approaches to the head. My opponent had last bowl. Three times I delivered very short bowls just over 14 meters out from the mat. (Any bowl that does not travel at least 14 meters is dead and must be removed from the rink.) The first two of my bowls may have caused the opposing skip to miss his takeout shots. His third bowl hit one of my blockers. The result:-+3 for my side! Furthermore, I didn’t risk damaging the head with my own bowls.

To deliver a bowl just over 14 meters I have found that I simply let my bowling arm hang vertically at my side, place my advancing foot in its normal forward position and then push out the bowl on its intended line without moving either foot. If your normal aim point is the boundary marker, the aim line should be slightly off-center and away from the side of the rink where you want your bowl to finish.

One of the unexpected advantages of such a short blocker is that for many bowlers the blocker is in their field of vision as they look down the rink to their aim point and is an annoying distraction even if the blocker is somewhat misplaced away from the actual draw line.

This tactic only has a chance to work on slow greens where both it is difficult to ’use the mat’ to get around a short bowl and when one side of the rink is already risky for the opposing skip. When these two conditions are not present it is a better play to put your bowls behind the head as ‘catchers’ or cover the respotting position(s).

Jack Strategies for Poor Greens

Throughout the summer in Canada, most of the lawn bowling rinks that I play on are less well maintained than those in Australia or Portugal. This is not surprising. These latter places don’t have a freezing winter to contend with. Whatever.  

An uneven surface favors less skilled players simply because anything that increases the element of luck helps them (or me as the case may be); however, there are aspects of poor rinks that can give extra advantages to a more experienced team that knows what to look for.

On some rinks the two meters closest to the ditches slopes off towards these edges by so much that a bowl that arrives near them almost inevitably continues on into the ditch. An observant team should not ask a lead to deliver jacks to within 4 meters of such front ditches. The reason: better players are more likely than poorer ones to deliver bowls behind the jack and if the jack is close to the front ditch such bowls will be lost.

In utter contrast to the above, there are other rinks that have somewhat of a physical barrier at one and sometimes both ends. Sometimes this is a thin strip of longer grass. Sometimes it is a raised strip of carpet on an older synthetic  green. Sometimes it is an actual strip of wood or metal intended to support the grass but which over time has become higher than the playing surface as a whole. This lip on a rink is usually higher at some places than others.

This lip at the edge of the ditch can be used to improve your control of your team’s preferred jack length. Move the mat up the green so that the distance from the front edge of the mat to the two meter line at the front ditch is precisely what you would like. Then, bowl the jack, aiming it so that if it is long it will encounter this lip at the front ditch. So long as your deliver is at or past the two meter mark and so long as your delivery is not so strong that it jumps over the lip into the gutter, you will end up with the exact length you want once the jack is re-spotted on the T as the rules require.  The protruding lip at the area of the ditch where you have aimed gives your team a reduced likelihood of losing the jack and a correspondingly increased chance to get your most preferred length! 

Comparison of Aero 3.5 Sonic with Taylor 3 Vector VS on Outdoor Synthetic at James Gardens

I just received my new Aero bowls with the indented Z grip. I took them to James Gardens and compared them with my old Vector VS bowls. I can deliver each along the same initial path. My aim point in each case is the number sign on the adjacent rink. At the hog line they have taken the exact same path. If there is a difference in the trajectory at which they enter the head, it is very difficult to detect because the weight of the two deliveries being compared would need to be exact.

What I can say is that my grip is more secure on the Vector VS  because my fingertips can sink into the small circular indents, while with the Z grip it is only skin that enters the zig-zag lines. This was a surprise to me since I thought the indented grooves would help the gripping.

What seems evident though is that for people who palm their bowl as opposed to using some variant of claw grip, the grooves on the Aero bowl will help to stabilize a bowl in their hand.

Divots

In bowls, a divot is a hole in the lightly rooted grass playing surface. Divots characteristically are found at two places. One is immediately at the front of the mat and is caused by dropping the bowl from a few inches to high  during an otherwise good delivery. The other more egregious type arises from a longer throw (not a roll)that bounces about 3 feet out from the front edge of the mat.  Because, in each case, the bowl is not rolling when it hits the green, both damage the playing surface by dragging at it as they slide as they pick up angular momentum. 

All people who release their bowls more than a few inches above the grass surface can make divots but for releases from the same height those who use some variant of the claw grip, with the thumb on the top of the bowl, tend to do more damage than someone who palms the bowl and rolls it off their fingertips. This is because the latter technique provides some rotation as the bowls are released. Tupper even advocates changing to a palm grip in wet weather to protect the green.

Players have different responsibilities for preventing divots. The lead is in charge of placing the mat. Besides the strategic importance of moving the mat up or back to change weight and line, leads are expected to also move the mat as necessary to provide a smooth landing place for the bowls. It is skips’ responsible to order that ground sheets be used if the green is suffering repeatedly damage. 

April Without Bowls

In 1922 T. S. Eliot wrote in his poem The Waste Land, “APRIL is the cruelest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.” April is certainly the cruelest month for Canadian lawn bowlers, such as myself, who have returned from someplace warmer where they could bowl, only to find that again winter is prolonged, the snow has not gone, and temperatures persist around zero Centigrade. My wife Tish and I spent January, February and March in the Algarve (southern Portugal) but had to leave because our landlord there wanted to make use of the condo at Easter and thereafter. The day we got back to Canada was reasonable weather and there was no trace of snow in Toronto but subsequent days have reversed that. If the temperature would only rise another ten degrees, the snow would be melted and the air temperature would be such that I could practice on the synthetic surface at James Gardens. My wife is giving me new bowls this year. I am getting Aeros: 3.5 Heavy Solar Flare Sonics with the Z scoop grip. These are perfected for  rougher, heavier grass greens like we so often encounter in Canada. I will continue to use my black 4.0 Heavy Taylor Vector VS bowls for fast synthetic surfaces like James Gardens and perhaps when leading. I was asked to play skip quite a bit at both Valverde and Vilamoura LBCs over the winter. In Portugal many fewer players have coloured bowls which makes it much slower to read the head in triples and fours. These Solar Flare bowls are yellow with red flecks so I won’t be contributing to the problem at least here in Canada.

My Conclusion: Canadians Should Bowl in Portugal

On Saturday my wife and I leave Portugal to go home to Toronto to await the Canadian spring. We have been here since the beginning of January. We rented a condo in Vilamoura in the Algarve- the southernmost region, on the ocean. We have played regularly at both the Vilamoura and Valverde lawn bowling clubs. Even though people who have spent more than ten winters here say that 2016 has been colder than normal, we can testify that bowlers who are comfortable in Canada playing in the early weeks of May or the beginning of October will find Portugal acceptable.

There are many properties for rent during these months and you shouldn’t have to pay more than 700-800 Euros per month with heat, water, electricity and internet access all included. It is really a renters market during these winter months. If you want to rent a car, get something on-line for a week or two when you just arrive and then investigate further when you get here. The prices quoted on=line are ridiculously high compared to what you can get with a bit of local help. When you are in Portugal, your landlord or people at the bowling club can connect you to better deals. Once again it is a renters market during these months. There will be plenty of cars available.

Food is cheap and restaurant food is great value. The supermarkets devote aisle upon aisle to Portuguese wines at amazing prices. Water is almost as expensive as wine!  Vilamoura has public bicycles at many locations. Ask your landlord to purchase cards to access the system and put money on them for you. I used one of these bicycles to travel from our condo to Vilamoura LBC, whenever my wife had other plans for the day.

In the Algarve, you absolutely don’t need to know any Portuguese language. Everyone you are likely to interact with speaks English- good English. At the bowling clubs you will be unlikely even to hear Portuguese or meet anyone who is Portuguese. English, Scots, Irish plenty- all the accents. The bowling competition is also quality. You won’t meet many novices here. If you also play golf well then you are truly in heaven. Actually Vilamoura devotes more space to golf courses than anything else. There are all kinds of places that rent clubs- even the first shop you see arriving at the Faro airport.

Finally you can use your location in Portugal to travel around; however, get a European GPS and program it not to use the toll roads. These government gouging devices are the relatively most expensive thing you will find in Portugal.

My wife and I found that the cost of the return flights Canada-Portugal-Canada was easily recovered from the much lower cost of everything else when compared to going to the southern USA so long as you stay 2-3 months. We have already arranged our accommodation to winter 2017.     

Matching Back Bowls

There is a tactic called ‘matching bowls’. As first explained to me, matching bowls means intentionally placing your bowl close to a bowl or group of bowls belonging to the opposition because these could all count against you should the jack be displaced. In fact, this is not an adequate explanation of the tactic. I pieced together a better understanding by watching the Indoor World Championships on Youtube.

Matching bowls may be useful towards the end of a match when your side is well in the lead. The purpose of the tactic is to limit the opponents’ possible scores in the remaining ends. The normal concern is that the opponents might trail the jack with one of their last bowls to a group of catcher bowls and thereby achieve a big score. Matching bowls correctly requires you to place a bowl between two of the opposition bowls. If your bowl ends up sitting exactly on a line between the centers of two opposing bowls, it can be proven geometrically that there will be nowhere on the rink that the jack can end up where both of the two opposing bowls can count.

This understanding should be combined with an awareness of where the jack can realistically be trailed to decide upon the best placement of the matching bowl. 

Bowls Tactics: Getting the First Bowl In

Why do so many bowlers deliver their first bowl short when it would be ssooooo much better if it was long? Is it because they feel that adding a yard is easier than taking a yard off? Perhaps that is it. I have been told that to add a yard just deliver the same bowl but consciously try to make the delivery smoother. I don’t remember anyone supplying me with a ‘rule of thumb’ for taking a yard off. The closest thing I can recall is being advised that if you are within a yard change nothing but just think, “My bowl was short” or “My bowl was long” as the case may be. Conscious corrections for small amounts of weight are almost always over-corrections.

When playing skip I have often thought it would be wise to ask leads to deliver their first bowl to my feet when I am standing three feet behind the jack. Then, if they are short, they will be right on the jack and if they are precise they have a useful starter bowl.

Since I control my weight by switching among four different degrees of backswing to give four different ’natural lengths’, when I lead, I will try never to deliver a first bowl with my lightest delivery. This way I have a more gentle, yet natural, delivery available if I am too long on my first bowl. 

Weight Control at Lawn Bowls according to Ralph Ellis

by Ralph Ellis

The following article concerning weight control in lawn bowling was written by Ralph Ellis one of the Canadian lawn bowls coaches. I think it may be of interested to many readers, particularly bowlers with five year’s experience or less. Weight control articles are among the most frequently referred to on the Greenbowler blog. 

“How do I control my weight?” David Anderson's reply was “There is no “magic solution in a bottle. You have to discover it on your own.”

David's answer was quite correct but after the session I told David Burrows that I objected to us not being more specific about the mechanics of weight control. David logically said that I should write an article about the mechanics and work with the coaching team. That is where this comes from.

How do lawn bowlers control their weight? The simple answer is that we do it exactly the same way that golfers, basketball players, baseball pitchers, and quarterbacks do it. We feel it.

When LeBron James sinks a jumper fifteen feet away from the basket on the left side of the court, he does not measure where he is standing, check his angle, and then make the shot since by the time he does all of that, there are two defenders there. By constant practice and natural ability, he knows what it feels like to release the ball from that distance and angle and he can tell you if it is going in or not long before it reaches the basket. The more of a natural athlete you are, the simpler this process is.

One of my more interesting coaching discussions about weight control was with Kevin Jones back at the WOBA in the 1980s. I asked him how he controlled his weight. Kevin replied, “I throw it harder or I throw it softer.” I laughed and said “Yes Kevin - but how do you throw it harder or softer? Do you keep your step and swing the same but vary your arm speed or do you keep your arm speed the same and vary your step and swing.” Kevin looked ticked off and said “What do you mean? I throw it harder or softer.” Kevin and I were speaking a different language.

The three most natural lawn bowlers that I have seen in my lifetime are Kevin Jones, Dave Houtby, and John Haggo. Each of them steps up and instinctively throws the bowl with apparently little thought. This does not mean that each of them does not practice hard to produce the results that they have gotten. What it does mean is that natural athletes in any sport automatically gravitate towards automatically using feel to gauge distance and weight.

What happens if you are not a natural athlete? What happens if you are me? I never played any high school sports and aside from some talent in long-distance running, I never really displayed any inclination to sports at all. I did lawn bowl from 12 years old and I am by nature analytical.

The two big theories on weight control when I started playing in the 1970s were:

1) Ezra Wyeth – keep the step and swing the same and vary arm speed and

2) R.T. Harrison and the theory of elevation – keep the arm speed constant and vary the height of the stance, the length of the swing, and the step.

Wyeth's approach is simpler and quite frankly, probably the correct approach; however, I felt more comfortable with Harrison's views and based my delivery on it, including winning a Canadian Championship in pairs. It worked for me because I was younger and more athletic than I am now so the complexity of the movement was less of an issue.

On fast greens, I bent my knees and kept low to the ground.

On slow greens, I stood up straight and took a big backswing.

Complexity does create issues as you age and when I returned to bowling after a five-year hiatus at 54 years of age, I found that the old delivery did not work for me anymore.

Rod Carew was one of the great hitters in Major League Baseball. He had 4 different batting stances depending on what type of pitcher he was facing. He won four consecutive AL batting titles. How many players copied him? Virtually none. His stances worked for him but teaching it to other players is a nightmare. For athletes in almost all sports, simplicity is the key to success.

The more that you limit the number of variables, the better your odds are of having a repeatable, dependable delivery.

Wyeth's approach is very similar to the South African clinic style where players have the lead leg slightly in front; step and plant the lead leg along the grass line and then push the bowl up the green.

Why do we not see this simple delivery more in Canada? Because our greens are so slow with over 90% falling below 12 seconds, players have difficulty sending the bowl up the green with just arm strength and also need to add a large backswing and a long step on heavy greens. South African greens average 12 to 16 seconds, so a set, controllable delivery makes more sense in that environment. If you are going to have a simple delivery, that keeps the step and swing the same and relies on arm speed in Canada, you will have to devote some time to physical fitness. Yes, you may have to do push-ups and chin-ups to be able to reach a full-length jack on a 9-second green in Canada.

If you want to succeed in our sport, you will need to devote some time to fitness. Anyone who has a longer competitive career in our sport keeps in shape. There are rare exceptions to this rule but playing out of shape is not a way to get an advantage.

After you have the basic physical tools in place, how do you develop your sense of feel if it does not come naturally to you? Start by putting the jack away. Go out on the green. Relax and throw a bowl in the most comfortable manner for you. Pay attention to how it feels. Step up and do it again without worrying about distance or targets. You will quickly notice that most of your bowls are tending to fall at a similar distance. This is called “Natural Length” and it is the first step to discovering weight control.

Most people when relaxed can duplicate one particular length again and again and this is their favorite length. Some people have more than one natural length. I have four. These are the same lengths that I throw again and again in competition.

Step one is duplication. Teach yourself how to throw the same length repeatedly. You may discover that you have more than one favorite length just as I do. Practice duplicating these lengths.

Step two is adjustment. Take your natural length(s) and start adding or subtracting weight from them paying attention to what it feels like each time that you add or drop weight. What you will notice over time is that you can tell if your bowl is heavy or light within a second of it leaving your hand. I have often told people after I deliver that my bowl is two feet heavy or one foot short just after delivering it.

Pay attention to your bad bowls as well as your good ones. That short bowl that you threw in a game may be the length of the next jack toss.

Gradually, even if you are not a natural athlete, you can teach yourself what different weights feel like and what the adjustment from these set weights feels like as well.

This is the “Magic Solution”. Teaching yourself feel.

There are some other factors to keep in mind. You want your delivery to be as smooth and fluid as possible. The enemies of weight control are:

·         sudden jerking of the arm at the end of the swing

·         standing up too fast as you release your bowl

·         dropping the bowl instead of releasing it on the ground and

·         chasing your bowl or leaning into your delivery to add weight.

On this last point, you will say “What about all of those champion Scottish bowlers who keep chasing their bowls?”

You can chase your bowl if you chase it the same way each time or if you only chase your bowl after it is fully delivered and on its way.

Overall your delivery should look the same each time without any jerkiness or extra motion.

I will also mention that keeping the step constant is critical for maintaining your grass line and release point. Try delivering a bowl but take a different length step each time. You will quickly notice that your grass line is changing constantly. A constant step not only helps with weight control but also keeps your bowls on the line that you intended.

Anyone who has played against me can tell you that I am a 30% better player when I throw the jack. This is because I get my weight for my first bowl from the jack toss. I will do a second article on how to do this but, in essence, to throw a bowl the same distance as a jack, it has to be thrown anywhere from six feet to nine feet heavier than the jack to reach the same point. I will not get into the mathematics of this in this article but it is the next step to becoming a great lead or singles player.

Now that you have the magic solution, what will you do with it? Go out and practice, practice, practice. In most sports, the ratio of hours practiced to games is about four or five to one. This is a good starting point for developing your game. See you on the greens.

Local Bowls Culture in Portugal

So far I find that the issue of who will take the mat in the opening end is always decided by choosing ‘big’ or ‘little’ from the roll of a bowl. In Canada and Australia, more often there is a coin toss.  Furthermore, the winner here always seems to take the mat. There is no spoken choice; it is just assumed by both sides. This may be because I am playing with people who are all playing on their home green, so they may simply know the grass and want to be first onto the jack. The observation so far is only based on behaviour at the Vilamoura and Valverde LBCs.

Nevertheless, it is startlingly different from practice in Canada where the winner of the usual coin toss almost always gives the mat away and chooses to have skip’s last bowl in the end. The feeling in Canada is also that there is an advantage in seeing the opposition’s opening delivery before having to grass your own bowl.

In the matter of collecting the bowls after an end, practice is not uniform between Valverde and Vilamoura. At Valverde they put out and use rakes like in Canada. At Vilamoura players help to kick the bowls back behind the mat placement.

Lawn Bowls at Valverde LBC Portugal

My wife, Tish, and I bowled yesterday at the Valverde lawn bowls club in southern Portugal. The green is a dense grass cut nice and short with no discolorations or bare spots. If you took a picture from eye level looking down, you would not be able to tell whether it was a rug or grass. All the grass blades are packed tight standing straight up.  Even at 10:30AM it is nearly dry. I did not use my bowls cloth after the first few ends.

The game was open triples on two rinks and open pairs on two rinks; however, every six ends the teams, the team positions, the opponents and the rinks were changed. Everyone had their own score card and the individual best plus/minuses won cash prizes after three rounds. An interesting variant was that in the first two ends of the first mini-game the maximum score was 1. In this way no trial ends were needed. This format is played at Valverde every Friday and it affords the maximum opportunity for everybody to meet on the green.  I played skip twice and lead once. I was +5 on the day. My performance in the first match which we lost with me skipping put me out of the money. Consistency is everything in bowls!

A point of contention arose during one of the mini-games. My lead delivered a bowl that came to rest leaning in a standing position against the jack. I told my skip opposite that I was nominating that bowl as a toucher since I wouldn’t dare try to mark it because it could fall and push away the jack. As we changed positions and the skips were going to the mat, the opposing lead said that this was not correct nomination. When I said that it was, she declared “Perhaps according to your rules” or something to that effect.

No harm was done to me although I apologized to the opposing skip saying that I was afraid I had upset her. Anyway the rule from Crystal Mark Third Edition of the Laws of World Bowls reads:

15.2 If, in the opinion of either skip or opponent or the marker, a toucher comes to rest in a position in which marking it would be likely to move the bowl or alter the head, the bowl must not be marked but nominated as a toucher instead.

15.3 If, before the next delivered bowl comes to rest or, in the case of the last bowl of an end, before a period of 30 seconds that applies under law 23.1, a bowl is neither marked nor nominated, it is no longer a toucher.

This club is owned by its members and they say, justifiably, that it is the friendliest bowling club. A club member was immediately into the parking lot to greet us and show us around when we first found the place and the secretary of the club had even helped to find us suitable accommodation when we contacted her over the internet before we left for Portugal!

Here they do use rakes to collect the bowls. The bowls available for visitors are of more recent vintage than those on offer at Vilamoura LBC and they are carefully arranged according to size while those at Vilamoura were totally haphazard. The Valverde bowls for the most part have grips while Vilamoura’s mostly do not.

Valverde has a restaurant right next to it where I expect food and drinks would be available. When we arrived this was closed since January is a slow month for tourists. Vilamoura has a bar in the tiny club house with plenty of tables and chairs on the patio next to one of the two greens. Vilamoura has more parking and that parking is more accessible.

Both these clubs are thoroughly English. While on the greens you will not think you are in a foreign language country. If you are leaving winter behind for several months I suspect Portugal is better value than the southern United States. I will say more after I give the USA a winter trial some other year.