A Lawn Bowl Strategy for the Lead at Pairs: Is there an Ideal Disposition of Bowls that can be laid down by a Lead Bowler?

Lawn bowls can be played as a game for singles, pairs, triples, or fours. Each has its subtle differences. I think the most different of all games is singles where only 8 bowls total are played. By comparison, pairs rolls 16, triples 18, and fours 16. In this blog article, I will be looking at pairs in particular, but there is some application to triples and fours, but I think very little to singles.

The question I want to explore is “Can we imagine a strategy for play by the lead in lawn bowling pairs, worked out in advance, that can give an advantage?”

At the start of the game, in the first end, one team gets to choose the position of the mat and the distance of the jack from the mat. The second team gets the advantage of playing the last bowl.

At all skill levels, bowling last is considered best and the  team that wins the choice chooses that their opponents ‘lead the way.'  Is this the best choice?

At Premier League level- yes, but among average competitive bowlers,  I suspect not. Too often the team that chooses the mat position and the length of the first jack just places the mat at the T and delivers a long or medium jack. A good pairs team should have a preferred length and mat position that is non-standard and which they can set up if they have the mat first in the match. This requires both that this strategy is understood by both team members and that the lead has practiced delivering jacks the predetermined distance.

Another point is that the lead who delivers the jack has the best opportunity to study how the jack’s path differs from a straight line along the aim line (because only the deliverer knows what the exact aim line was and how closely the throw followed it). The jack generally will run off-line towards the narrow hand. The lead can make use of this in delivering the first bowl.

An example of a strategy, (a strategy is a predetermined plan), if given the mat or selecting it, is to move it out twelve feet from the back ditch and deliver the jack a medium distance that you have already specifically practiced; delivering the jack as precisely as possible down the centerline watching to see to which side it curves. Then bowl the first bowl on this supposed narrow side trying to achieve a good back bowl about 6 feet behind the jack. This will allow one to get a better feel for the correct weight for the following three lead bowls with the lowest risk of actually wasting a bowl by throwing the first one short.  With the next two bowls aim for two yard-on bowls. If either of these goes a bit short it will be one of the shot bowls in the head. Only if the lead reaches his fourth bowl without getting one within a few feet of the jack should he shorten his weight aiming for the jack's actual length. By this time the earlier bowls will have given the best teaching for the correct weight. The result after the lead has completed his deliveries should be a first or second shot and three back bowls. The lead should deliver all his bowls in the expectation that at the completion of the end the jack will have been displaced backward towards the majority of his bowls.

A Lawn Bowl Blocks More than its Size

Often your skip will direct you to bowl away from the side of the rink where an opponent’s bowl blocks the approach to the jack (called ‘in the draw’); particularly, when that bowl is close enough that, if hit, it could be advanced close up to the jack. As leads or vices, we may be disinclined to change sides, because we might have already found the correct grass or even a good aiming mark there. Nevertheless, we need to be aware that an opponent’s bowl blocks more than just its own cross section. If even a small portion of your bowl hits that blocking bowl it will be thrown seriously off-line. The actual space excluded by that standing bowl is between 2 ½ to 3 times its diameter. Put another way the standing bowl blocks a cross section of 12 ½ inches perpendicular to the path of your bowl! It is also highly likely that, if you hit a bowl standing short of the jack, it will be moved closer to the jack. If your shot is too weak for that, your own bowl will be stopped dead and prevented from entering the head.

In contrast, if you deliver your bowl  as requested from the opposite hand, you have the added chance to wick off that standing bowl, if it is fairly close to the jack moving it away from the jack. Furthermore, your bowl may wick closer depending upon how you hit that opposition bowl. Being directed to the opposite hand allows you an unimpeded road to the jack with a chance to dislodge the opposing bowl or trail the jack away from it.

My Experience with Knee Pain Playing Lawn Bowls

Recently I was experiencing pain in my left knee when lawn bowling. I am a left handed bowler. I experience no swelling. I tried applying ice packs after matches. I also tried wrapping the knee in a heating pad while sleeping after multiple matches in a day. Of the two the heat seemed to be more effective. I searched the internet for descriptions by others of the same problem.

I found one case almost identical in a discussion on the Julian Haines site which I quote extensively below.

https://julianhainesbowls.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?24662-Knee-Injury-can-anyone-help

“I've had a knee injury for a while now that I just can't get rid of and wondered if anyone else has had a similar problem that they've managed to sort out.

This is the background:

I'm getting a pain over the top of my left knee cap whenever my left knee bears weight. The pain is at the crucial moment in delivery when I step forward with my right foot (I'm left-handed) and the left leg takes the strain. The pain is mild at the start of a game but towards the end of the game, I'm struggling to deliver a wood.

The injury started back in March/April at the end of the indoor season and I hoped that having already decided not to bowl outdoors this summer, the rest would cure it. However, it didn't, and as soon as I went back to bowling the pain returned immediately.

I've been seeing a very good sports physio who has determined that it is a problem with the tendon/muscle and not a cartilage or ligament issue. He gave me stretching exercises to do at first and then started on strengthening exercises for the quadriceps two weeks ago. On his advice I tried to bowl again last night, having not bowled or exercised my knee in almost any way for over a month, but the pain returned almost immediately and I managed about 20 minutes before coming off. I have also felt pain in my knee all day today so it's not getting any better.

Apart from starting to bowl right-handed, does anyone have any advice from experience with anything similar as I don't have much time left before the start of the new season now?!”

The link is provided so you people can see all the responses.

A knee brace was a suggestion offered more than once in this on-line discussion; however, I looked for something in my delivery that was triggering the difficulty. The rationale was that I have never had joint problems and cannot recall any particular moment when an injury could have happened? Furthermore, I am only 68. If I have real physical damage now, what possibility do I have of bowling into a ripe old age?

 I think I may have found something causing this problem in my delivery. In my delivery I have been almost completing my backswing before starting my forward step. I could do this because my backswing was very slow, measured, and deliberate. My step forward occurred during that hesitation moment at the top of the backswing. My hypothesis about my ailment was that stepping forward with the bowl raised was making balance shaky which transferred too much extra stress to my anchor knee.  Facts supportive of this hypothesis are:

If I swing the bowl forward so early that it coincides with the start of my forward stepping this causes an instant of pain

If I do not transfer my weight forward onto my advancing leg fast enough the weight remains too much on my anchor leg causing this pain.

If I start stepping with my anchor foot as the bowl comes to the bottom of the backswing (when the bowl is closest to my anchor foot) the pain is greatly lessened

If I transfer more weight forward more quickly before the backswing is complete the problem is less

If I exaggerate my follow-through so that my anchor foot moves up to meet the foot I have advanced, there is improvement.

Making these changes has started to reduce the pain per delivery; also bowls are even more consistent in both weight and line! More testing is underway.
Since then I have consulted a physiotherapist. She says that my knee cap has not been sliding up on down a natural groove in the thigh bone. I have undertaken a regime of exercises to fix this; however, I can’t tell whether it is the exercises or the end of the bowling season that has resulted in the almost complete disappearance of symptoms when I go through the delivery motion.

Arm Motion in the Lawn Bowling Delivery

When I was provided my first lessons in lawn bowling (three years ago), I was instructed to draw back my arm along the aiming line keeping the plane of the running surface of the bowl precisely vertical. Subsequently, I saw that many experienced bowlers when they started their pendulum delivery turned the palm in towards the side of the body as it passed through the plane of the body and only turned the hand back to its starting orientation as it reached the point where the bowl was to be released. When I was given instructional material during my winter sojourn in Australia, this was proposed as a useful modification in the delivery. For the past two years, I couldn’t understand what advantage this could bring. Now, I see that when I try to keep the plane of the bowl’s running surface fixed, if there arises a need for the backswing to be more pronounced, I can feel my shoulder muscle stretching excessively. This stress causes the top of the backswing to deviate in a direction away from the body. This would cause one to bowl narrow on the forehand and wide on the backhand.

If one turns one’s palm in through the backswing this stressing doesn’t occur.
So it might make sense, at least for heavy drive shots or when bowling on particularly slow greens, to turn the wrist in. One might think that changing one’s delivery for drive shots might complicate life; however, there is a hypothesis that making the drive delivery significantly different from the draw has an advantage: because the two shots follow a different style, your mental computer that is supposed to automatically control the proper weight of your shots, does not confuse the weight for a drive with the proper weight for a draw shot. As a consequence according to this hypothesis,  a draw shot delivered immediately after a drive will not be as likely to be overweight. Apparently, if drive and draw have much in common, drives tend to cause draws immediately following to be too heavy.

How to Run a Lawn Bowls Tournament as Drawmaster

Before moving on to join another lawn bowling club a mentor gave me some pointers on how to run a tournament as drawmaster. I pass these on. It isn’t rocket science. Any bowler including those with only a few years’ experience should be able to handle it.

The money is collected from the participants who wish to be included in the draw for teams. In return the player’s name tag is taken. The drawmaster arranges a trial set of teams, matching the players to the appropriate draw pool (leads,vices,skips) based on approximate ability. The drawmaster counts players up until the cut off time for entry. In favorable cases (s)he has additional players including sometimes himself, who will play or not as needed to make the team numbers work out properly. When (s)he has assembled his players into groups of equal numbers and approximately equal abilities (s)he places the skips, the leads, the vices if needed and the seconds if playing fours into separate bins.

In public, in the view of the participants, the drawmaster picks skips from the skip group and places them on the draw board on rinks at random. In turn, the skips pick the other members of their team randomly from the tags.

The rules are read. Special local rules pointed out. Arrangements for lunch and in case of inclement weather are stated.

After play begins the drawmaster transfers the information for each team to a plastic card using a felt tipped pen and so sets up to record the results from the games as they come in. The cards are slotted on a board according to the rink the teams are playing on in the first round.

Then the drawmaster sorts the entry fee money which should be in small denomination bills for ease in splitting into the prize packages. To this is added any extra money, from a sponsorship for example. Based on the number of entries and the philosophy of the sponsor or bowling club it is decided how many prizes will be awarded. There should be a prize for last game high so that all teams have a chance to win money no matter what their performance has been before the last round (otherwise some players might go home). Envelopes are labelled with the name of the prize ie tournament winner, two game winners, high one game winner etc. No more than half the teams should receive prizes.

No team can receive a game score higher than 1.5 times the number of ends played. That is, for 12 end games the maximum points is 18. If more points are won the score is written as 18+ some number. Plus points are used to break ties at the end of the tournament. Ends won are used to rank teams for choosing next round opponents if points for are equal.

When the scores from the first round come in, you need to get both score cards because the drawmaster must check that these agree. The results are written on the plastic cards.  Winners play winners, losers, losers, the object being that teams play other teams with the same won/loss record. The teams are ranked, first according to win/lose record, and second by total points for. When the teams are matched for the next round, rinks are assigned so that no team plays on a rink it has played on already, If possible no team plays repeatedly on end rinks because these rinks tend to be wonky. If there are several greens in use, teams should play if possible on new greens.

At some point the envelopes are charged with the predetermined prize money leaving space for the players’ names and their final score.

After the final round the teams are ranked according to performance on the day. No team can win more than a single prize. Each team is awarded the highest value prize that it qualifies for. The prize winners are announced in reverse order, for example the last game high is announced first and the tournament winner last.

Winners are responsible for publicly thanking the refreshments committee, the sponsors, the green keepers etc. but if they fail to mention some group the drawmaster should seek recognition for these people. 

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.