Delivery at Lawn Bowls: Subtracting Weight

Steve McKerihan is a perennial player on Canada’s Commonwealth Games Lawn Bowling teams and a frequent coach for lawn bowling skills development. He is also the father of Kelly McKerihan one of the premier lawn bowlers in the world.

Last week we were in a group chatting after a mens’ interclub match and he mentioned that a dependable way to take off weight, when your previous bowl is a meter or so long is to deliver this next bowl with the same arm speed and body weight transfer but to not stay down when you deliver your bowl but to start to rise as you release it. The reason why this should work is that by lifting your body as you release the bowl, you transfer some of the horizontal energy which is what moves the bowl down the rink, into a vertical component of energy that is wasted. As a consequence the bowl doesn’t travel quite as far.

The physics of this was immediately incontrovertible to me. Furthermore, this is why you are told to stay down throughout your delivery if you don’t want to be short. I said to Steve, “On Youtube I have seen top bowlers not staying down and I thought they were making a mistake.”

“No, no” was his reply, “they are just subtracting weight.”

Well, I’ve been bowling seven years now and I’ve attended weight control clinics and I’ve never heard this. What’s more important I’ve been trying it and it works!