When You Can’t Hit your Line at Lawn Bowls Do this!

 If you have been reading the Greenbowler blog for a while you could be expected to know the answer to this question: If you are missing your line— that is failing to roll your bowl over your stare point, usually a spot about five meters in front of the mat — and consequently either leaving your bowl wide of the jack or having it cross over the center line and end up a distance away on the other side, what is the most likely problem with your delivery?

If you author that blog, you would be even more likely to think by now, after more than 10 years of lawn bowling, that surely that guy would quickly analyze what was going wrong and correct it within a few ends.

No such thing! For 36 ends, here in Portugal, bowling first at Valverde LBC and then the following day at Balaia LBC, my deliveries were all over the place and I was left scratching my head, wondering what was going wrong. My weight was fine but I was wide sometimes and narrow other times.

I should have reread my own blogs! If one fails to get one’s forward stepping foot firmly on the ground before one’s forward swing is well underway, the chance to deliver a bowl along the proper path to the jack is seriously degraded. What was infuriating— well not quite, it is only a game— was that I have written at least five blog articles emphasizing this— more than about any other aspect of the delivery.

Anyway, my bowling today confirms it; that was the problem. I hope my readers catch on faster than I did when they encounter the same problem!