The More Forgiving Hand in Lawn Bowling

It is pretty well understood that one side of a rink is often more forgiving of line errors than the other. In contrast, there is an incorrect belief that the narrow hand is invariably the more forgiving hand. As well, few understand that whether a hand is forgiving or not depends in a complicated way upon the bias of your bowl, the contour of the green, and the position of both mat and jack, not whether the  hand is wide or narrow.

The most common example of a situation comprising a difficult hand arises when a visually imperceptible ridge runs down one side of the rink. If your line runs on one side of this ridge the bowl is held out, while on the other side the bowl swerves down like a surfer coming off a big wave, and runs across the center line. This kind of inhomogeneity sometimes can be counteracted by repositioning your feet (‘using the mat’) moving from a more central position to one side or the other, so that your bowls display consistently one behaviour or the other. The new more generous foot-fault rule in the new World Bowls rules (Crystal Mark 3) makes the mat effectively wider and so more useful in this regard.

In contrast, a very forgiving hand arises when, for example a visually imperceptible, shallow, concave dip (like a broad shallow gutter) runs down one side of the rink. If your bowl’s path is too wide, the valley wall draws it back; if your line is too narrow the opposite valley wall pulls it out. This helpful ‘dip’ may be found with equal likelihood on either the nominally narrow or wide hands. 

As noted, these concave or convex contours cannot be seen. They deviate from flat by so little that they are imperceptible. Yet they are sufficient to measurably deflect a bowl. They cannot be detected by rolling a single bowl.

There are clues however. Missing an established stare point and still ending up close to the target is a sign of a forgiving hand. Conversely when two of your bowls are delivered with much the same weight and both roll over your stare point, but end up far apart; this is a sign of an unforgiving hand.

The situation of an unforgiving hand can be confused with the case where one bowl delivery is deflected in course by some object in the grass. To distinguish between these two situations, every bowl needs to be watched closely throughout its travel. If there is a sudden jump or slip in a bowl's smooth curve, this suggests a hole in or a discrete object on the green.