The Etiquette or Rule about Practice before a Match

These past few weeks I have played in several tournaments where there were plenty of novice bowlers. At each event some of these new bowlers, as soon as they knew which rink they were scheduled to play on, began throwing practice bowls on that rink. This is bad form. It can be embarrassing as well because, as happened on one of these occasions, the tournament committee came on the loud speaker and ordered the offenders to stop bowling where they were practicing. I do not know whether it is an actual rule or just proper bowling etiquette but practice on the day of a tournament is acceptable only if it is done at right angles to that day’s competition direction. All I can find in the Laws of the Sport of Bowls Crystal Mark 2^nd Edition is:

12.3   If, before play starts, a player in a competition or game plays on the same rink on the day of the competition or game that player will be disqualified. This does not apply to open tournaments.

From this it is not clear when such action is actually unlawful rather than just gauche.

The reason for the admonition is fairly obvious. Part of the skill in lawn bowls is the ability to quickly learn what is the proper grass, what is the narrow side and what weight to play on the assigned rink under the given weather conditions, and no player on any team should begin a match with special knowledge just gathered before play starts using unofficial practice bowling.

In Ontario Canada where I compete, there are no trial ends allowed in tournaments so I can understand the extra nervousness this creates for novice bowlers; but, good form is important and we should not violate it.  

Keeping Score

I recently played in an open tournament for novices where the teams were chosen randomly by draw(Cosburn Park,Toronto). The result is that you mostly play with strangers and against strangers. I was playing as a vice and the skips were keeping score. There was no scoreboard. I eventually hollered to my skip to get the score, because I knew it was the last end. My skip either could not hear or understand me but an opponent offered that the score was 8-12. We had been losing the most recent ends andI  presumed that we were behind. I played shots that offered the best prospect to score 4 points! As you can imagine these would have been quite different if I had understood that we were 4 up! Fortunately, I did not manage to completely bugger things up and we won the match.

The morale: keep your own score sheet if there is no public scoreboard, especially, if communication within the team is poor for some reason.  

The Importance of a Smooth Delivery

In a smooth delivery the bowl is grassed without wobble. Wobble is that side-to-side shaking of an improperly delivered bowl. It is most pronounced immediately after release. Wobble usually corrects itself before the bowl finally comes to rest and for this reason many lawn bowlers think it has little effect on the precision of their deliveries. It is only, they think, that when wobble becomes very exaggerated, as when it is called a pineapple, that it has an effect on both the intended weight and line.

Bowls that take little grass are the most susceptible to wobble from improper delivery. There has been considerable controversy about narrow running bowls, sometimes called ‘cheater bowls’.  These bowls are legal according to the present International Rules of the Sport of Bowls. They have a running surface engineered with a cross sectional curvature such that, when tested, without introducing any wobble, on the standard bowls testing table, the bowl does take the approved minimum grass (bias from straight) set by the International Laws of Bowls. Yet, if the same bowl is delivered, on the same testing table with some wobble, it does not curve the required amount. Furthermore, and what is of more practically significant, when it is delivered under outdoor conditions on grass, even without wobble, it again does not show the minimum bias exhibited by a standard bowl under the same conditions.

Since I am a novice, I am most often playing lead in competitions and I have chosen to use relatively narrow running Taylor Vector VS bowls. Since my entry into the head is unlikely to be seriously blocked, the shortest path to the jack is the least likely to suffer misadventure. But there is a linked risk. On a less than perfect rink, the effect of wobble seems to be compounded. Perhaps the combination of momentarily running on the edge of the bowl’s running surface and a sudden deviation in the green surface seems to throw the trajectory off more significantly. I have noticed that on the James Gardens’ synthetic surface, where the seams are beginning to appear a bit raised above the rest of the surface, delivering with any wobble can significantly divert my bowl from its intended path. Thus a smooth release of a perfectly upright bowl becomes a high priority. 

A Lawn Bowling Delivery Error Caused by Off-Rink Practice

Keen lawn bowlers (like myself) can get into a bad habit while practicing lawn bowl delivery off the rink. We want to go through the motions of a standard delivery and we want to hold the bowl during that practice swing to maintain proper balance; but, we can’t actually let go of the bowl, because it would seriously damage the furniture (or whatever else is around us). As a result, we hold onto the bowl while we simulate the follow through.

This, I have discovered, creates a bad habit that requires still more practice on the rink to eliminate. The difficulty is that such practice causes me to hold onto the bowl past the time when my bowling arm is vertical to the green when I am actually playing. That is, the bowl gets released further along the rink and not just a few centimeters in front of my advancing foot, as it should be.

This has unfortunate consequences. The further my arm extends out in front of my body the greater the inclination for it to pass slightly across my body, making forehands narrower and backhands wider than planned. But this is the least important potential problem, because so long as I force my bowling hand to stay over the aim line and resist turning my open palm inward, the bowl should still go straight along the planned path. The second and more serious, unavoidable consequence is that the bowl will receive less push down the rink and will have less weight than one properly released. The reason: when a bowl is released late with the bowling arm less than vertical, some of the muscle impetus that should go into pushing the bowl down the rink will instead be wasted push it slightly upwards. A further consequence is that the bowl will dump onto the playing surface to some extent. Because differing energies will be lost depending on the place where the bowl is released, consistent weight will become more elusive.

Why Lawn Bowling is in Decline

In the lawn bowling mens’ pairs competition at the Toronto Cricket Club yesterday, I think I was the only novice playing.  I played three matches, losing three. In Canada, unlikely my experience over the winter in Australia, because there are so few tournament players, if you are in a significant tournament you play only against the best and most competitive. Since there are no selectors in Canada, there are no levels, and so there are no gradations of players into different leagues. There is one exception. Canada has a class called novice for people who have only played for five years or less and there are a handful tournaments restricted to novices only.

Don’t get me wrong. I have no problem with this setup. It is an unparalleled opportunity to play against only the best players. What it does do is make the rapid progress of novice players dependent upon having very selfless mentors as partners in these team events. These experienced players give away their chances to score better, so a beginner can improve more quickly. This is probably why the only good young players have a family member that can bowl with them. I think an even stronger statement is possible. There are essentially no young players who do not have close relatives who bowl. The social mobility of our society is what is causing the decline of the lawn bowling population. Granddad can’t conveniently bowl with his grandson or granddaughter because they now typically live far away!

I don’t blame lawn bowlers who want to play only with the best and against the best. It is their time, their recreation and they are entitled to have their fun. But from now on, don’t fuss about what is happening to our sport and rather hold in awe those selfless few who do struggle to maintain or  even resuscitate it. 

Novice Lawn Bowlers, who show initiative, must learn everything faster

Beginning lawn bowlers play lead. Novice lawn bowlers, at most Canadian clubs, find that if they show significant improvement they are rapidly moved higher on the tag board and end up playing other positions. At James Gardens, my home club in Toronto Canada for example, my wife is now often slotted into club tournaments as vice, even though she is only in her second year bowling. In club pick-up games I am now usually made a skip, even though I am only bowling for my third year. So, in actual practice, novice players must be able to make a workable go at all the shots called for in all the positions.

Additionally, they need a clear understanding of the duties of all the team positions and a fair grasp of the most frequently applicable rules of the game. All that is OK with me. Novice bowlers who show the more initiative just need to understand, they are in the accelerated program!

When You Just Don’t Hit Your Stare Point

I just finished a friendly pick-up game where I bowled very badly. The question the result elicits is “What should you check immediately if you are not hitting your stare point?”

For me the most likely suspects are:

1)           I am not setting my advancing foot on the ground before beginning the forward sweep of my bowling arm.

2)           I am drawing my bowling arm back too quickly so that it does not go back along the aim line.

P.S.

In the same game, I was playing against a seasoned bowler who always plays lead. He sets the mat at the 2-meter mark and sends the jack to within two meters of the ditch. With such groove bowlers, it is important to take them away from their game. Set the mat anywhere except the standard two meters from the back ditch.

Getting to Full Length on Slow Greens

My wife, Tish, and I were practicing bowling to long jacks on the heavy grass greens at the Willowdale Lawn Bowling Club in Toronto Canada. The green was still slightly moist and it had not been cut for a few days because the mower had broken down. Tish, who is slight of build but quite strong, could not get her bowl from a mat at the 2 meter mark up to a jack two meters from the front ditch. I had read somewhere that one could add extra length by flicking one’s fingers to provide some rotational velocity to the bowl just as it left one’s hand. According to physics, this should add length because a bowl normally delivered will partially slide at the outset and only after an instant more acquire enough angular velocity to roll properly. While it is sliding the bowl is subject to a higher resistance than when it rolls; therefore, if the bowl can be made to roll from the outset it should travel further.

When Tish tried this immediately her deliveries were about four meters longer. She was able to bowl the full length of the rink. The effect was dramatic!

I don’t think this finger flicking should be incorporated as part of a regular delivery because it seems the extent of the flick would be hard to keep constant, but it certainly seems to help when there appears no other way to add length.