Beating the Last Bowl at Lawn Bowling

 

To win at bowls one does not need to play superbly. All one needs to do is play better than the opposition. If every time you deliver a bowl it finishes closer to the jack than the opposition bowl that preceded it, your side will be heavily favored to win that match (you can still lose to an opponent’s last bowl).

“That is obvious,” you may say, “but how is that approach superior to the standard idea of just consistently drawing well and protecting against unexpected jack movements?”

The standard approach assumes a perfectly flat green. When this is the case, mat position and jack length don’t change the delivery angle. You learn the proper bias from a few of your own prior bowls. You don’t need to be concerned to watch your opponent’s deliveries. You have all the knowledge you will need to deliver your own bowls. You often see this illustrated by professional bowlers playing indoors on a near-perfect carpet. They wander off between bowls and pay little attention to what their opposition is doing.

Outdoors, and particularly if the rink is imperfect, I find that standing immediately behind my opponent and watching precisely the line being taken gives some surprising insights into the variability in line that arises when the mat is moved and the jack length is changed. Having seen precisely the line taken by that preceding bowl and seeing where it ended up provides me with the best information for how to beat that last bowl to finish closer to my target.