Tactical Shots at Lawn Bowls

 

Turramurra LBC

There are four distinguishable tactical shots in lawn bowls. The draw shot has as its target its final ending place.… that is, the shot is successful if your bowl finishes precisely where you are aiming it to go. Both the yard-on shot and the running shot,  in contrast, are successful if they don’t reach the spot the bowler is aiming for. Their purpose is to hit something in the head as they pass through it toward their target destination. The drive is distinguished in that if it fails to hit its target it will always finish in the ditch or out of bounds.

The Draw Shot

A Draw Shot is the most frequent shot and it is really what the game is all about. For this shot, the player attempts to play with the exact weight and line required to finish closest to the jack.  Less frequent tactics may require drawing close to some other location on the rink often to protect against the jack being subsequently displaced backward or to block the path opponents may use to get bowls into the head. Mastering this shot is considered to be the most essential in all bowls.

 The Yard On Shot

The "Yard On" shot is a bowl that is played with enough weight to carry it, if unobstructed, a yard or two past the target but the line that is supposed to be taken causes it to pass through the head near the jack. The objective of this shot is usually to drag the jack away from opposing bowls, hopefully towards your own, or to push a bowl out of the "head" and take its place. In Scotland, this is often referred to as a "chop and lie" shot. The shot is more often successful on heavier greens where bowls express less of their bias. With ‘swingy’ bowls on a fast surface, the yard-on shot that misses its target often ends up well out of the head and is most often no longer a factor in play. 

The Running Shot or Ditch Length Shot

The Running Shot is one that uses more weight than the yard-on. The object of this shot is to remove the opponents’ bowls from the head, to move the jack to the ditch, or to seek some other result that requires the bowl to be played with weight. The difference between it and the drive is that the running shot has a greater chance of avoiding the ditch itself even if it misses its target. This is important when your side has no back bowls or when the jack is required to be respotted if the jack is driven out of bounds. This can be a difficult shot to play as the line (bias) required for hitting the target changes with different weights. The weight should be constant with the line adjusted to allow your bowl to pass through the head. The ditch length shot is less useful on fast greens because a bowl that misses the head is likely to finish out-of-bounds because of the greater curling of a bowl on a fast surface.

The Drive

The drive shot is a bowl that is played with the highest weight that one can muster without sacrificing accuracy of line. Striking the target, usually the head, with full force is the desired result. The tactical objective of this shot may be to completely remove the opponent's bowls from the head or from the rink or to drive the jack into the ditch or out of play. It is most often used when a player has at least several shots against him and they are mostly closer to the jack than he is likely able to draw. In this case, the object is to destroy the head by driving the jack out of the rink. When successful this results either in getting the end replayed (traditionally) or causing the jack to be repotted (recently) which may be advantageous. This can be a very effective and intimidating shot to have in your armory but many players have difficulty controlling their direction when concentrating their efforts on so much weight. With the respotting rule more frequently practiced today, less velocity and more accuracy are more likely to produce an advantage. When delivering the drive it is very important to release the bowl no more than six inches in advance of the forward foot since holding your bowl longer is likely to cause narrow bowling.