Correct Weight More Important than Correct Line

During the first three years of my lawn bowling novitiate (2012-2014), I had been overwhelmingly concerned with line and had paid scant attention to length. The result: I rarely had a bowl that went out of bounds (an error of about 2 meters in line) but I often have errors of weight more than two meters!

Putting the problem this way makes it obvious that instead my first concern should have been correcting my weight and I should have left line to my developing intuitive sense. This should be the case particularly when playing on grass where bowling, aiming at the boundary mark, is never far wrong.

I was spending excessive time on the mat finding the stare point and insufficient time just assessing the distance to the jack and feeling the correct amount of backswing and forward muscular thrust.

My partner for novice pairs, Thomas Wu,  had invented a system of ‘notches’ in his backswing to control his weight and he encouraged me to try it. He said he could feel each of these positions in his backswing as a ’click’ so he knew when to arrest that backward swing and start his forward pendulum motion. 

Perhaps this sense comes with practice and perhaps not, but what is beyond dispute is that more attention to weight would pay dividends.

I tried paying primary attention to length in a friendly match at Willowdale LBC on a Monday evening back then. While doing this I simplified my game by setting my stare point on the forward bank rather than finding a closer spot on the rink. The combination resulted in the most satisfying result I had achieved for quite a while. My backswing clicks were at 6”, 9”, and 12” behind the heel of my anchor foot.

Although such mechanical guides are the only way to gauge distance when starting to bowl, after about six years one just imagines the required path of the bowl and then leave it to one’s subconscious mind to control the delivery.