As is appropriate, most lawn bowling advice concerns how one can improve one’s own performance. It is usually regarded as poor form to try to teach during an actual match. Still, a discerning skip can improve the performance of another team member by choosing conditions that minimize that person’s shortcomings.
An exemplary situation arose recently. I was playing in a pairs match with a relatively new bowler, and I observed that she was experiencing difficulty with her line on short jacks. The reason was that while she maintained the same length of backswing for all her deliveries, she was cutting off her follow-through and dumping her bowl, trying to take weight off her deliveries to short and medium jacks.
“When we get the jack back,” I told her as we changed ends mid-game, “throw long jacks; not medium-long, but really long. I’ll be standing on the forward T. Don’t worry about putting the jack in the ditch.”
What I had seen was that when playing to long jacks, her follow-through was complete because she was trying to transfer the necessary weight, and that might solve her line control difficulty.
Well, my partner didn’t put the jack in the ditch; she did get it close to the forward T; and she did follow with a good number of bowls close to the jack so that we upped our game and won the match!
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