The Delivery at Lawn Bowls: Alex Marshall’s Bowling Grip

As mentioned in a previous blog, November and December are months for a lot of Youtube watching of bowls matches. The bowls season ended in mid October in Canada and my wife and I don’t head off for Portugal and the Valverde LBC until New Year’s eve.

Since I model my own bowling delivery after Alex Marshall MBE, I watch his matches particularly closely, employing slow motion and free frame techniques to see even the smaller elements of technique. I am noticing this year that besides exhibiting the shooters’ stance, he uses a non-standard bowls grip. I have tried to show this in the screen pictures above. This grip was being taught as an alternative grip in a teaching manual that I obtained while bowling in New South Wales, Australia about five years ago.

The advantage that I see with this grip is that it corresponds more completely to the natural angle that your relaxed hand would take up if you let your arm hang loosely at your side. I have tried to show this in my own photo below. The aim line is the edge of the carpet. I am left-handed and my arm is hanging relaxed at my side. My fingers are not parallel to the aim line. If a bowl is now simple inserted into my hand with the running surface parallel to the aim line I will be holding the bowl just like Alex is doing in the pictures above.

You can also see illustrated that I too am in the shooters' stance with my anchor (left) foot is at an angle to the aim line to provide greater stability when I step forward.

What the Complaints About Bowling Arms Tells Me

I have noted an editorial in Bowls Plus Magazine  

 positing that some special regulation should be applied to bowlers who use bowling arms because they create an unfair advantage. It is claimed that these 'armed' bowlers make errors of line only about 2% of the time while regular 'hand' bowlers make errors around 30-35% of the time. These numbers come from the letter’s author, Geoff Mathers of MCC-Kew Sports Club Inc., Victoria in Australia, who claims to have watched both types of bowlers extensively.

Two points arise in my mind that follow from this. First of all, this data must pertain to run-of-the-mill, club bowlers like so many of us! Good match-play bowlers do not miss their line so often. You can gather your own statistics watching on Youtube. Second, I think if this is correct it should be teaching us regular ‘hand’ bowlers something about how to improve ourselves.

What would give ‘arm’ bowlers such a big advantage? Think about it. I can think of two possibilities.

 First, the ‘arm’ bowler does not need to lower his/her body to release the bowl onto the green. Lowering your body by bending your knees while simultaneously swinging your arm can disturb your balance more than just swinging your arm the way the ‘arm’ bowler is required to do. This points to the importance for us unassisted bowlers of starting with our advancing foot somewhat forward so that our body lowering can be minimized by being already closer to the ground. Also, the ‘hand’ bowler can stabilize his/her body during the stepping forward by resting one hand on the forward stepping knee. This extra stabilization is not available to the ‘arm’ bowler. But many ‘hand’ bowlers do not use these elements in their deliveries. Having given up two advantages that would strengthen their balance, perhaps, it is these less-experienced bowlers who are complain the most about the supposed unfairness.

Another possibility is that the ‘arm’ bowlers get a clearer, more consistent view of the correct line because their  bowl is released from a more upright position so that the ‘armed’ bowler can easily keep his/her eyes fixed on an aim point on the forward ditch. The ‘hand’ bowler often finds it a great strain on the neck to stare at a point on the forward ditch while simultaneously bending down to grass his/her bowl. If this is the cause of the large discrepancy in holding the correct line, it may just need to be reemphasized that ‘hand’ bowlers should pick out their line while standing upright (like the ‘arm’ bowler) behind the mat, then select the appropriate stare point on that line, position themselves correctly on the mat, and deliver their bowl over that stare point. 

I do not think even we club bowlers will miss our line 30-35% of the time so long as we maintain the proper pre-shot routine. Perhaps the posited success of bowlers using a bowling arm can assist us all to be better.