What a Left-handed Lawn Bowler Should Consider

A left-handed lawn bowler has some advantages. Such persons mostly competes against right-handed opposition. Right-handed players much less frequently face a left-handed bowler. For the left-handed player the situation is regular. For the right-hander facing a left-hander is not the 

norm. This has at least two strategic implications.

First: when the left-hander is required to bowl before a right-handed opponent, at the beginning of a game on an unfamiliar rink or at an unfamiliar length during a match, he or she can stand on the mat so that the opponent cannot follow the same line. To do this the left-handed bowler takes a position at the left-most edge of the mat so that the delivery line passes through the back left corner of the mat for a forehand and over the front left corner for a backhand. These positions are illustrated in the figure above.

 Second: if a right-handed opponent delivers a back-hand draw and encounters a run in the green that causes that bowl to back-up, The left-handed bowler delivering a fore-hand (for that bowler) is likely to suffer the same fate because the handed-bowler will be delivering a bowl most likely wider than the opponent’s and that bowl is likely to encounter the same ridge in the green (the left side of the top figure). There is, therefore, a strong incentive to change hands.

If it is a forehand that the right-handed opponent has delivered and that has backed up, the left-handed bowler can be somewhat less worried. Because the left-hander’s bowl can be delivered closer to the centre-line, it is less likely to get caught on the outside of the ridge and directed away from its normal path (the right side of my topmost figure). There is still some risk to staying on the same hand, but it is less. That bowl may be able to draw inside the ridge.

Notice that a ridge only causes a problem in the portion of the rink where a bowl is slowing down. Ridges in the portion of a rink closest to the mat do not appreciably change the path of a bowl because, at the outset of its travel, a bowl has enough momentum to push across a ridge with little distortion of its path. It is when a bowl is slowing down and curving in towards the jack that a ridge can cause a substantial disturbance.