Scoring and Prizes in Lawn Bowling Tournaments

Relative Values and Number of Prizes

It seems the convenor of a lawn bowling tournament needs to ask some rather philosophical questions when deciding how to award prize money. The simplest approach is to decide how many prizes will be awarded and then divide the money into that number of graduated packages depending upon a predetermined scoring scheme. This works fine for open tournaments where the entrants are focussed on winning and not the socializing and encouragement for newer bowlers. For club events which seek more of these latter elements I think a different prize structure is needed.

  

Recently, I was the convenor for several club lawn bowling tournaments. There were only two games in these events which was not enough to produce a single undefeated tournament winner. It was my judgment that entrants had not signed up primarily to win prize money. They were looking for the pleasure of bowling in a competitive environment. I also decided that an objective would be to retain for every team the chance to win some prize for as long as possible during the play.

In a club game I encourage all bowlers to stay for the presentation of the prizes in the clubhouse, by having a draw from among all the participant teams who have not won a prize that day. To qualify for the prize, however, all the members of that team must still be on the premises. If the team is incomplete, another winner is drawn. The prize should be as great as the smallest merit prize.

Adjusting Scores to Account for Another Competitor’s Unrealistic Chance Taking

In order to win most tournaments a team must win all its games. A team that believes it has a realistic chance to top all the participants, if it finds itself behind in one of its matches with only two ends remaining, may take extraordinary risks to try to make up the deficit and get a win. Very often this chance-taking allows its opposition to accrue an undeservedly large number of extra points. This unusual number of extra points can give the team that is playing against the desperate one, sufficient points to win the tournament even where their skill does not merit it.

A way to avoid this situation is to record the points-for after the (n-2)th end while logging the winning team only after the full n ends are finished.

Let me give an example of this. Team A is playing Team B. Each match is 16 ends. Neither Team A nor Team B to this point in the tournament have any losses. But after 14 ends Team B is 15-12 ahead of Team A. Team A is nevertheless very confident that, if it can save this match, it can win the tournament and get the first prize money. Team A realizes that it must make up 3 points in 2 ends. Therefore, Team A plays some high-risk shots trying to score 2 points in the 11th end. In fact, it goes down 1, and starting the 12th end Team B leads 16-14. Now team A must be even more daring, trying to score 4 points to tie and force an extra end. Because they are forced to again try low-percentage, desperate measures they actually end up down 5. Team B has picked up 6 points in the last two ends and finishes winning 21-14. Team B ends up winning all its matches and its 21 points-for versus Team A enables it to break a tie for top spot and win the tournament.

If Team B’s game score was determined after 14 ends (15-12 ) and only its W counted after 16 ends, Team B might quite likely not have ranked first in the tournament. Team B won essentially because Team A took low-percentage chances in an effort to win its game and Team B benefitted. 

Breaking Ties in Awarding Prizes

For the in-club tournaments where I am convener, very frequently only two games are played and often the number of ends in each game is not really enough to overcome the inherent luck of the game. This is unavoidable; however, in awarding prizes, once the number of wins and total regular points-for have been applied, there is still frequently more than one team tied in rank. Plus points (any points won in a game > 1.5 X the number of ends); for example in a 12-end game plus points would be those more than 18 ) are often used to break these ties. I have found this to be a very unfair differentiator because the team that earns these points usually does so because it has drawn, by luck, a particularly weak opponent in the first game.

I have experimented with more imaginative ways to break ties in the final ranking of bowls teams.

Performance of 1st Opponent in the 2nd Round

If the team your side played in the first round, won its 2nd round match, while the team you are tied with, played an opponent in the first round that lost its 2nd round match; then your team perhaps should be ranked higher, since it seems more likely that your side played a superior first-round opponent.

This is a bit complicated so let’s look at a specific example. Two teams, A and B, are tied after playing two games. Each one has 2 wins and 16 points-for. Team A defeated Team C in the first round. Team C was paired against Team D (best vs best based on W/L and points-for) in the second round and secured a win. Team B defeated Team E in the first round but Team E lost its 2nd round match against Team F.  Using this method, Team A is ranked ahead of Team B in awarding prizes. It seems its first-round opponent C was stronger than E that lost its 2nd round match.

Now suppose instead Teams C and E both either won or both lost their second matches; what do you do now? You look at the points-for of Teams C and E in their second-round matches. If Team C has more, then Team A is ranked higher. If Team E has more points-for in its second-round match, then Team B is ranked higher.

This method of breaking ranking ties addresses the situation where your side gets a more difficult opponent in the first round. You still must win to get prize money but in the case of a ranking tie at the finish of all the games, the subsequent superior performance of your difficult first-round opponent will help your side.

Ends Lost by 3 or More

Lawn Bowls is a game where consistency is important. If two teams are tied in the final ranking, the more consistent team should be preferred. To measure this consistency the scores in all the ends of all the games for each of the two tied teams are examined. A count is made of the ends in which each team lost an end by 3 or more shots. The team that had the fewest of these ‘breakdown’ ends is judged the higher ranking.

For example, Teams A and B are tied according to games won and total points-for (plus points not included). Team A in its two games had only 1 end when their opponents scored >= 3. In contrast, Team B had 0 occasions when their opponents scored >=3. Team B would be considered the higher ranking of the two. Team B seems slightly more consistent.

The Lead’s Bowls: the Second Bowl of an End at Lawn Bowls

When the opposition have the mat, they deliver the jack and the first bowl of the end. This is not the time to be chatting, getting a drink or finding your own bowls. You should be standing behind your opposite lead watching the line taken and the result achieved. You should use this information to improve the outcome for your first bowl of the end.

Leads are required to follow the instructions of their Skips and these instructions are provided by hand and body signals they send once the previous bowler has completed a delivery. What is written here is only to acquaint you with some of the considerations a skip may be having when deciding what instructions to send.

Opposing Lead’s Bowl >2 meters from the Jack

An opposing bowl that finishes more than 2 metres from the jack should not be a consideration when deciding your own first delivery. Knowing the aim line that was taken by that bowl is very much a consideration. It can be a guide or a warning depending on how that bowl finished.

Opposing Lead’s Bowl is Close  but Behind the Jack

You might think that an opposing first bowl that finishes just to the side of the jack and around a bowl length behind it would make your life more difficult but in fact it presents an opportunity. If you can follow that bowl down the rink and come to rest touching that bowl (resting the bowl) you will be shot bowl. If by chance you strike that bowl with a bit more velocity you will roll it back and take its place! (chop and lie). In both cases the opposition bowl makes it more likely that you will have a happy result.

Opposing Lead’s Bowl is Behind the Jack but not Very Close

The Opposing Lead has just delivered a back bowl. Your skip will want your first bowl to finish closer to the jack and preferably behind the jack. Your skip is likely to let you choose the hand you prefer. If you have no strong personal preference choose the hand your opposite lead played, you will have a better estimate of the correct aim line.

Opposing Lead’s Bowl is Jack High but about a Mat length Wide of the Jack.

When a bowl is jack high the term means that the front edge of that bowl and the front edge of the jack are the same distance down the rink. Another term is they are jack level.

This is a favourable situation for your side. This bowl does not block your delivery path and is not so close to the jack as to be an eventual serious competition for shot bowl. Rather it confers a small advantage to your side. 

If you deliver your bowl on the same hand with enough weight to reach to or behind the jack but your bowl runs a little wide you can get a wick off this opposing bowl that will push your bowl in towards the jack and push the opposing bowl away.

Your skip is likely to call for you to bowl to the jack on the same hand where the opposing jack high bowl is sitting.

Jack or Bowl Situation

Suppose the opposing lead delivers a jack high bowl that is so close to the jack that another bowl would be impossible or almost impossible to squeeze between them without any contact. This is called the jack or bowl situation. Your skip might call for you to bowl to a specific spot on the other side of the rink from the close opposing bowl because that is where the jack is very likely to be by the completion of the end.

In Your Line but >1 metre in Front of the Mat

Unfortunately your skip will decide whether that bowl is in your draw line. I say unfortunate because often you will have a better idea of whether your delivery is blocked than the skip. For the sake of the overall team cohesion please follow the skip’s decision in this situation; even though your judgment may be the better one. When the skip asks you to change the hand it is for fear that your bowl will be stopped far in front of the head. The open hand will give you a clear path to the jack!

In Your Line but Quite Close in Front of the Jack

Ironically, when your opposite’s lead bowl is unambiguously in your line, your skip may not switch you to the other hand. The reason is that even if you hit that blocking bowl squarely your bowl will finish a very good second and if your bowl just glances off that opposing bowl and rolls on a tad further it my be you who has shot bowl!

Teaching Beginners Lawn Bowls a New & Better Way

I have discovered a new approach to teaching new lawn bowlers.

From what I have seen, this method leads more quickly to an effective, consistent paradigm that works for fast and slow surfaces, different body types, and different ages.

It starts with what is most familiar to beginners and adapts that to the more unfamiliar elements.

It starts by having the students roll jacks from a standing position on the mat aiming to send them smoothly down the center line of the rink over a chalk mark three meters in advance of the front edge of the mat. The jack is perfectly round, no different from objects these people are already familiar with such as baseballs, golf balls, or tennis balls. The goal is familiar also— precisely directing the ball along a desired path.

All that needs to be added to the instructions is the request that the jack travel between 21 and 30 meters and that it not be bounced on the bowling surface. The distance requirement will enforce the need for some backswing and the requirement for rolling will require the lowering of the body to bring a hand near to the rolling surface.

For the teacher, an added advantage of starting with jacks is that there are usually many more of them available for instruction and one does not need to start out struggling with different size bowls. All students can roll from the same collection of jacks. At this stage, it doesn’t even matter if some jacks are the heavier ones for playing on synthetic surfaces while others are the smaller lighter ones for playing on grass. 

If you fancy it, the teacher can at first let everyone experiment with how they get a jack smoothly past 21 meters down the center line. Once they recognize how difficult this is to reproducibly do, then you can demonstrate how you propose they learn to execute it! The reason we bowl the way we do is because it works better than other styles. It isn’t just convention or tradition!

Once your students can properly roll the jack, only then is it time to introduce the bowl itself.