Henselite Supergrip Championship Bowls

By the middle of October most Canadian lawn bowling clubs have officially shut down. In Toronto, Etobicoke LBC which has two grass greens had its last games October 13^th.  Nearby, James Gardens LBC with just one synthetic carpeted green is officially closed but unofficially open for practice and self-organized games if you know the combination for the lock on the shed.

I have been comparing some of the bowls sets that I own with other bowls sets that have been donated to the club for the use by tyro players. In particular, I have looked at an old set of size 5 brown Henselite SuperGrip Championship bowls. Today, bowls bigger than Size 4 are unpopular at James Gardens compared to the heyday of lawn bowling.

In 1959, Henselite introduced an improved powder compound with a ‘Super Grip’ additive, designed to give the polymer bowl a better feel in the hand and provide bowlers with a better grip on the bowl.  Also, before 1960,  Henselite bowls were not machined with a dimple grip. Bowls with 'Super Grip’ were called the Henselite Championship model. The additive has remained a feature of all subsequent models. This particular bowls set was approved for use on South African greens (these bowls are marked S.A.B.A.) which can be particularly hard and so fast running because they can contain up to 30% clay.

These bowls when tried out clearly have more bias than my Vector VSs or Aero Sonics. The hard sand packed carpet at James Gardens runs 16-17 seconds and on the wide hand one’s aim point on the front bank can be as wide as the further boundary marker on the adjacent rink!  Nevertheless, I can show, by placing a plastic pylon at the shoulder of the bowl’s arc, that it only traverses a few feet into the neighboring rink. Although many bowls seem to threaten to disrupt the neighbor’s head the actual risk is very occasional and mostly threatens to hit unimportant wayward bowls and a very rare displaced jack.

In exchange for the annoyance of having players on the next rink blocking your aim point these bowls seem to offer more line stability than either of my favorite bowls sets. This can be expected to be particularly true when the wind is strong. Indentations on a lawn bowls surface can act like little windsocks. A bowl without grips, such as these Champion Supergrips, thus has reduced wind resistance and is less likely to be tilted by the wind. It is this tilting that seems to most substantially change the path of a bowl in the wind. Tilting is also more exaggerated the harder the bowling surface because the actual area of bowl surface in contact the playing field decreases the less the surface deforms with the weight of the bowl.  A bowl nestling in short grass is held more upright than the same bowl sitting on a thin synthetic carpet with no under-pad. The slower the green, the less bowls delivered on it are affected by wind.

A heavier bowl can also expect to be more stable in the wind. My Henselite weighs 4 ounces more than my Vector and about 3 ounces more than my Aero.

My plan is to use these Henselite Supergrips to play some matches at James Gardens next year. What I will be giving up is an enhanced chance to chop-and-lie on an opposing bowl. The less a bowl swings the easier it is to come to rest against a target bowl. This is not giving away too much because on a fast surface a draw-drive game is the better play of the percentages.

On 11-13 second grass rinks I will stick with my Aeros because a less biased bowl on a slower surface quite regularly helps one gain shot by resting on an opposition bowl whenever it is just behind the jack.