When You & Your Opponent are Each Bowling Well from Opposing Hands

When you & your opponent are each bowling well but from opposing hands, the advantage is likely to pass from the side that is forced to switch hands because that side will have to judge afresh both the correct grass and weight. You can force your opponent to change hands by delivering a short bowl that crosses the center line and comes to rest in the opponent’s draw. Your opponent will probably get worried about hitting this bowl and promoting it onto the jack and for this reason, may be induced to change hand. This strategy can be seen being practiced in the match between Harlow and Chok  

So in this situation shade, your draw shot towards being narrow. If it is short it can block your opponent’s line. If it is perfectly weighted it can possibly trail the jack and if it is behind it becomes a good ‘catcher’ for your subsequent deliveries.

P.S. In the above-linked video Harlow also demonstrates a different tactic. When the draw on both sides is blocked he bowls with more weight for the bare jack and takes it and his bowl into the ditch. This occurs at time 1:16:23 on the video.

A Lawn Bowls Strategy for Playing Singles against a Perennial Skip

Suppose you most often play lead or vice in triples matches but now you are matched to play singles against a player who typically skips.  What possible advantage could you have? This was the question I asked myself recently here in Portugal when I was drawn against one of the top players in our men’s club singles tournament.

Leads and vices have more practice estimating the length of the jack seeing it just from the mat. Skips are the only players who regularly stand at the head and then later deliver their bowls. Consequently, they know precisely the distance from jack to mat when they walk to the mat end of the rink. They don’t have to guesstimate: they can even pace it off if they wish! This is different with singles play. Only the marker is in the head. The singles competitors must, each in turn, eyeball the jack and from that, work out their proper weight. 

That is, unless you as the opposition deliver standard lengths, placing the mat on the tee and sending full length jacks or some other length which an experienced bowler can handle in his sleep. Don’t do it…..every time you get hold of the mat move it up the green and deliver anything except a jack on the front tee. That way the ‘Perennial Skip’ is challenged to estimate the length from the mat alone and you quite possibly have more experience doing that. Furthermore, if you have delivered the jack, you have your muscle memory to help you. 

Rolling your ‘natural length’ from different mat positions is a strategy I have used.

This may not bring victory but it can avoid what otherwise might be a blowout!

Social Lawn Bowls is Becoming Boring

I started playing lawn bowls seven years ago, I felt it was a challenging game both in terms of body control and strategic and tactical thinking. Sadly, the way social lawn bowls is being played today, in Portugal during the winter and in Canada during the summer, the game seems to be degrading towards boredom.

Skips seem more intent on chit-chatting with their opposite than working with their leads to choose the best jack length and mat position given the twists of the game. Front ends don’t communicate among themselves to improve their deliveries. Short jacks, jacks in the gutter, or jacks out of bounds are just dragged back into an approximately acceptable position rather than being sent back to the opposing lead for re-delivery.

It has apparently become socially unacceptable to move the mat more than three meters from the back ditch. “It’s just a practice game” I’m told when I ask about these things. Some practice: when the length more than 80% of the time is just between 27 and 30 meters. Some practice when the mat is 99% of the time within 2 to 3 meters of the back ditch. If it’s just practice why isn’t the careless bowler, who delivers a wrong bias, returned that bowl for another try? Why do they even keep score?

At least in Portugal, a match is 18 ends. In Canada, players frequently vote for as few as 10 ends and 12 ends is common. Why not?...... Well, bowls is a game that is designed to reward consistent execution. It is the length of the game that sorts out the meritorious from the plain lucky.

Look. People can choose to entertain themselves however they want. I accept this. But I think what new participants look for in a sport is something that is both challenging and vigorously contested. Lawn bowls cannot help being slower than other sports but it doesn’t need to become lackadaisical!