The Skip can help a Lead by calling for the Jack at the latter’s Natural Length

Last Saturday, playing skip in the Aiken Cup at James Gardens Lawn Bowling Club, I noticed that my lead was bowling consistently 24-25 meters even when the jack was shorter or longer than this. At the same time, he had no difficulty sending the jack as directed, right to my feet, when we had the mat. Therefore, I started calling for a 24-25 meter jack every time we got the mat. Immediately, and consistently thereafter, he peppered the head with bowls like a bowling machine. I would say that this was the most significant reason we won the tournament.
It looks like helping your lead delivery the jack (his or her) natural distance can pay big dividends. The textbook advice is that the jack length should be adjusted for the best performance of the whole team, but this is usually difficult to figure out much less execute. For lead and skip to agree to seek the lead’s natural distance is simpler. The vice and skip, as the more experienced players (usually), are better equipped to do the adapting for that weight!

The Drawmaster’s Dilemma in Social Lawn Bowls: the Swing Lead and a Proposed Alternative

The person who arranges the teams for games of social bowls at the local lawn bowling club never faces all the problems that the draw master at an open tournament encounters, but there is one problem this club volunteer faces more often, indeed, at least half the time: what to do when you have an odd number who want to play?

The answer, wherever I have gone in the world, is to have a ‘swing lead’. A swing lead delivers bowls for each team alternately. In some places, the number of bowls that the lead delivers is reduced. For example, in a game of triples a swing lead may play two bowls for each side rather than the three bowls that a regular lead would play. Half of the swing lead’s bowls are marked with tape and the other half have none. This is so, at the completion of each end, the lead bowls delivered for each side can be identified for the scoring.

Some players don’t mind being in a game where there is a swing lead; others hate it. Some would rather not play than participate in a game with a swing lead! There are certainly disadvantages. When starting a game with a swing lead the skip should always give away the mat because you want the swing lead to deliver bowls for your side after learning weight and line from the other side’s bowls. 

Looking at the situation another way, the swing lead bowler gets no thrill of competition because (s)he is not up against any opponent but is part of both teams. All the swing lead can do is practice technique. Also, the swing lead is doing the raking at every end.

I would like to propose an alternative applicable to games of triples; the most common social game.
A team of four players can compete against a regular triples team. Each team will deliver 9 bowls as in regular triples, the difference being that for the team of four, the lead will deliver two bowls, the second two bowls, the vice two bowls, and the skip the usual three bowls.  For the three-person team, each member will deliver three bowls as usual. Each team will have grassed nine bowls in each end. In this way, seven players will be engaged on one rink and each player will be part of just one team.

The drawmaster should intentionally make up the team of four with stronger players because it is a disadvantage for any team member to only play two rather than three bowls.

Playing Bowls in Honolulu: Leads as Greenskeepers’ Assistants

 On my way home to Canada, after avoiding any winter weather in Australia, my wife and I played bowls at the Honolulu Lawn Bowling Club.  This is the only lawn bowling green in Hawaii. It was built by Australian troops during the war. It fell into disrepair afterward, was rehabilitated, and is now maintained by its present membership, who total about 35 souls. The club is within walking distance of the Hilton Hawaiian Village resort where we were staying.  Apparently, many visitors come for a game from the tourist sites. There is play on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday but see their website for current details. We were not the only visitors. There is a large selection of bowls to borrow and a friendly atmosphere.

As you might imagine keeping up a natural grass green with only a small group of player-volunteers is a challenge and I could see that not all the rinks were playable at one time. This reminded me of something very important for novice bowlers to remember. Novices very often are lead bowlers and they have the freedom(at least within 3 or 4 meters) to decide where to place the mat. Leads should choose the position of the mat with respect for the condition of the rink. They are the most important assistants to the greenskeeper because they can keep the heavy traffic away from areas where the grass needs time to recover. Most often this is the area two meters out from the back ditch where so many players think the mat must be placed!

Try moving the mat five meters up the rink. When the mat has been centered with the help of your skip, on the green mark the position of the front center of the mat with chalk. That way you will be putting your mat down where there is less wear and tear while still making it quick to center the mat at the same place again and get on with the next end.

Another Reason for Lawn Bowling’s Decline

A couple of generations ago very few women worked outside the home. As homemakers they could arrange their affairs to free-up three or four hours during the working week to bowl. Men in contrast by and large were only available on the weekends. It was in this era that the customary practices at lawn bowling clubs were established. Women played during the week. The weekends were reserved for the men.  In many bowling clubs in Australia this practice seems to have continued. That is how things operated both at Burleigh Heads and North Turramurra, two of the clubs I played at during this past Canadian winter.

If I had discovered lawn bowls while my wife and I were still both working, I would never have taken up the sport because, first, my wife would not have been able to bowl during women’s hours that coincide with her work and, second, I would choose a weekend sport that we could both play at the same time. Fortunately, the situation is better in Canada than in Australia. Social bowling is more often than not mixed and there are many more mixed competitive events as well.
If bowlers who have played for 25 years or more want to preserve their beloved game they will have to give up playing arrangements from another era! I know you love those old boys’ club arrangements but don’t you love this great game even more?

Tactics: Wicking Off Jack High Bowls

There is a saying, very common in the days of all wide-bias bowls, that a jack-high shot bowl doesn’t stay shot on slow to medium greens. With the wide-spread use of narrow bowls, this has become true even on fast greens. The reason for the aphorism probably is that the wick into the jack off this wing bowl is very attractive because the other possibilities for deliveries from that side are also inviting: a better shot bowl or a trail of the jack away from the jack-high shoulder bowl. If the wick occurs it usually results in the delivered bowl becoming shot and the former jack high bowl being turned away.

Whether the jack-high bowl is yours or an opponent’s, bowling to achieve this wick is good tactics; however, whether one should change hands to try this is debatable. If the shot also requires that you both switch hands and bowl the wider side it may be, on balance, unwise. Whatever the case, the novice needs to follow the skip’s instruction. Do not select your bias and step onto the mat until you receive that call. The reason: wrong bias bowls are most frequently delivered when you misguess the skip’s shot selection. 

The Control of Weight at Lawn Bowls

For the novice lawn bowler, the first consideration in bowl delivery is the control of line or learning to take advantage of the particular bias of your lawn bowl. I suppose this is the first instinct because the arcing path of the lawn bowl is its most distinctive, and non-intuitive feature. As beginners we expect an approximately round object to roll approximately straight! When we find it does not but has a controllable arc and when our instructors offer an insight into how to master this, doing so is our first desire. However, more significant for how close to the jack the bowl ends up, is the influence of the initial speed or ‘weight’ with which the bowl is laid down.

Very few instructions enumerate all the variables that determine this initial velocity. Barry Pickup in his PDF file names them all although he does not provide them in a clean list and all he says about selecting some combination from them is “The fewer variables you allow into your delivery technique, the easier this muscle and memory training will be and the more accurate your bowls will be.” 

This article contains one sentence that is actually at odds with my own observations. Pickup says, “Since the position of your arm as you assume your stance on the mat has an effect on the amount  of back-swing you use and thus the degree of arc in your overall delivery swing, this is a good place to start your adjustments for varying weight and the distance your bowl travels.”  My own bowls teacher has a very gradual, very measured backswing that is quite unrelated to the position of her arm as she takes up her stance on the mat. I have adopted this. Where I start my pendulum motion is fixed and completely unrelated to how large or small my backswing is. Nevertheless, Pickup’s is the most complete presentation I have found and the most useful to me.

The elements that contribute to the distance a bowl will travel are:

 back swing elevation
degree of crouch
length of your stride
release of the bowl above the grass
rotation applied by fingers if any
arm bending at the elbow
added muscular acceleration from the arm
wrist bending at release if any


I have tried to list these in the approximate frequency with which I have observed them. Most deliveries are some combination of the eight elements.

When Delivering a Lawn Bowl the Score Should be Absent from your Mind

Sports commentators are always talking about the tension and nervousness that athlete’s must be feeling at critical times. The fact is: thoughts about winning or losing and the emotions associated with these are exactly what top athletes have been trained to banish from their mind. Outcome is supposed to become irrelevant; proper execution is everything. Once the routine of the learned behavior is begun, for many top athletes their subconscious takes over. The activity seems to proceed in slow motion (see http://ishi-in-sn.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/your-mind-heads-computer.html). To me, it seems the lawn bowler concentrates visually on the correct line, thinks of the correct weight and feels the proper arm motion. Everything else is pushed aside. It is even important to control breathing and heart rate because these, if different from normal, can adversely affect a normal delivery. Bowls announcers on the Australia network often comment that under pressure bowlers more often deliver too short. Thus deep breathing and muscle relaxation exercises can help.

Similarly sports commentators will talk about giving 110% or wanting to win more than the opponent. The top athlete does not buckle down more at certain times than others but aspires to peak performance throughout a contest. Wanting to win too much actually destroys performance; striving for your personal best, win-or-lose, by reproducing drilled performance results in more wins because it banishes worry and other distractions.

Updating the Control of Weight at Lawn Bowls

At the Turramurra LBC near Sydney Australia, when I sought help to control the weight of my deliveries, Bob Hawtree, one of the coaches, told me to really look closely at  the distance of the jack from the mat and silently in my head ask the question, “What does it feel like to bowl to a jack at this distance?" I was told this would elicit a response from my muscle memory. Then, “You should simply bowl with that memory in your mind.”

Essentially this means don’t first try estimating the number of meters from mat to jack and then putting a number on it. Rather, let your internal computer take the data from your eyes and let it control your muscles directly.

I was not spending enough time just looking carefully at the distance of the jack from the mat and letting that feed to my ‘mental computer’.

This advice must, of course, be combined with a fundamentally reproducible delivery motion. The coach emphasized three things for me in this area: the position where the bowl is released (about 6 inches in front of the advancing foot; the point in one’s swing where the step out begins (the bottom of my backswing); and the height to which one raises one’s arm in the follow through (not more than the height of the knee). 

Gratifyingly, this works amazingly well! I have dramatically upped my game. This is in fact the most significant improvement I have made in years!