How Many Lawn Bowls Matches are Won by Six Points or Less?

....Quite a large percentage, right! Well how many matches contain within them a six point conversion? ....Or two three point conversions?  What I am getting at is that a lot of matches swing on the skip making a few big shots with one of those final bowls.

My co-blogger, John McKinnie who writes Bowling for Gold, makes the point in a recent offering that some shots deserve more careful preparation than normal. Forget that some people, like Ryan Bester, bowl so fast that you would think he doesn't prepare at all. I am talking about mortals!

Particularly if the shot required is something other than a draw shot, I think one needs to really methodically go through a check-list in preparation; not to increase your nervousness or increase the tension but to settle oneself and make sure you have brought to mind everything you have learned.

I skipped a team that won a competition at James Gardens on Saturday. The difference we won by could be accounted for by last shot or second-last shot conversions. Among these, I scored on three out of four drives where we were down at least three in each head. Yes, I was also lucky in some of these outcomes, after lucky after I hit the head, but those successful shots ' gave our side a chance' in those ends.

The moral: practice those rescue shots and then take a few seconds to prepare before trying to performing them.

When Winning with it, Don’t deviate from your Lead’s ‘Natural Length’

This afternoon I played an in-house social game of pairs on grass at the Etobicoke Lawn Bowling Club. My lead was on fire. We had the mat most of the afternoon and I kept calling for a jack 23-24 meters in front of the mat placed at the T line(in Canada the hog line is at 21 meters!). This I gathered from her performance was my lead’s ‘natural length’ under the rink conditions that day. Besides bowling consistently, she delivered the jack dependably to the 23-24 meter length and, since we were doing wonderfully, I never changed anything throughout the match.

When the match was over I said to her in the clubhouse, “That length seems to be very comfortable for you.”

She astounded me by replying, “But I like to change it for variety.”

Bowls is challenging enough. Don’t do the opposition favors. If your side is out-bowling them at your lead’s natural distance, let them struggle to win an end so as to have a chance to change things. Then, you will get your variety. If your side is out-bowling the opposition with a certain mat position and jack length conditions, your success improves your confidence and, consequently,  further improves your bowling; at the same time, your success creates doubts in your opponents’ minds and damages their bowling.  

An Open Letter to New Bowlers after Open House

A Real Game

Last Saturday, I was one of the club coaches at the James Gardens Open House. I met quite a few new people who all could become pretty good bowlers. All seemed to enjoy it. They realized, “I can do this.”

But many, maybe most of them, I predict are going to quit after their first real game. Not because they can’t roll a bowl up close to that little white ball but because they haven’t learned the terminology, the etiquette, the hand signals, the team member responsibilities or the basic rules yet. And if they don’t learn these things before they try to play a real game with experienced club members, they are going to be embarrassed or even spoken to unkindly;( even though we try to prepare our members to look out for the ‘newbies’).

 That first day Open House instruction is intended to answer the question, “Could you play a reasonable game of bowls.”

We aren’t burdening beginners with all the rules and responsibilities stuff. That we save for the subsequent lessons. But if these tyro bowlers think they can learn the rest watching bowls on Youtube, they are on the way to problems. Top bowlers on the tube speak little (since it is usually singles). When it is a team game, they know their signals. There is a dashed line down the center of the rink to help center the mat. They have a special official to center the jack. The score is kept for them and they don’t need to rake bowls. All in all, no help for a prospective novice lead bowler.

So if new folk want to enjoy bowls, they need to learn the details; the non-physical stuff  That is what volunteer coaches teach in lessons after that first one. However, no matter what I write some people won’t come out for it. For them I have tried to write down a bit of this theory and practical stuff. I have augmented a Wikipedia article.

Lawn bowls is, almost always, played on a large, rectangular, precisely levelled and manicured grass or synthetic carpet surface known as a bowling green which is divided by imaginary lines into narrow parallel playing strips called rinks. The game can be played between two individuals or between teams of two to four. In the simplest competition, singles, one of the two opponents flips a coin to see who wins the "mat" and begins a segment of the competition (in bowling parlance, an "end"), by placing the mat and rolling the jack to the other end of the green to serve as a target. Once it has come to rest, the jack is aligned to the center of the rink and the players take turns to roll their bowls from the mat towards the jack. The object of the game is to finish each game segment or ‘end’ with bowls closer to the jack than the opposition

A bowl may curve outside the rink boundary into the rest of the green on its path, but must come to rest within the rink boundary to remain in play. At the front and back of the long narrow playing surface are ditches. Bowls delivered into the front ditch are dead and are removed from play, except in the event when one has "touched" the jack on its way. "Touchers" are marked with chalk and remain alive in play even though they are in the ditch. Similarly if the jack is knocked into the ditch it is still alive unless it is out of bounds to either side. When this happens at our club the jack is "respotted"on the center of the rink two meters from the front ditch and the end is continued. After the competitors have delivered all of their bowls (four each in singles and pairs, three each in triples, and two bowls each in fours), the distance of the closest bowls to the jack is determined (the jack may have been displaced) and a point, called a "shot", is awarded for each bowl which a competitor has closer than that opponent's bowl that is nearest to the jack. For instance, if a competitor has bowled two bowls closer to the jack than their opponent's nearest, they are awarded two shots. The exercise is then repeated for the next end, bowling back in the opposite direction on the rink. A game of bowls is typically a preset number of ends.

A new lawn bowler at James Gardens LBC will at first be a participant in a game between teams of three players each. The new bowler will deliver the first three bowls for his or her side. The team leader called the “skip” will ask the new bowler to try to deliver each bowl as close to the jack (the white ball) as possible. Once the lead has rolled three bowls (s)he has no further responsibilities in that ‘end’.until all the bowls have been delivered and the score on the end is determined.

Each player on the team has particular assignments to promote the flow of the game. Besides rolling three bowls, when his/her team has possession of the mat, the lead is required to both place the mat and center it, at whatever distance from the back ditch the skip decides, and then roll the jack to the length the skip calls for  At the completion of an end, if his/her team losses the end the lead rakes the bowls together behind and to the right of the new mat position. If his/her team has won the end, the winning lead immediately collects the jack and starts setting the mat for the next end.

If the new bowler bowls a bowl that is close to being out of bounds it is his/her job to signal to the skip whether that bowl is inside or outside the rink.

Open House in Canada: Bowls Advertising

It’s almost May and May is the month for Open Houses at the lawn bowling clubs in Canada. In May clubs offer the general public a chance to discover that lawn bowling is fun. What’s it like? It’s sort of alley bowling with sunshine. It’s sort of curling with grass instead of ice (and no sweeping!) It was a fascination for Francis Drake, historically, and hundreds of thousands of Australians, today.

It can keep you flexible and trim. Literally anyone can play. People in wheelchairs play. People who are legally blind play. If you have a bad back or bad knees, there is special equipment to help deliver the bowl. The best bowlers in the world are in their twenties and thirties but there are advantages to being short, stout and having big feet! (A firm foundation and low center of gravity are advantages.) There are advantages to being patient and tactical.

Finally it is environmentally green and financially affordable.

Any club will welcome new bowlers and lend them bowls to get started. Now is the season to invite friends and acquaintances to have as much enjoyment as you are having!

The decapitated man on the left is now minister of immigration The bowler is the soon to be former leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada

Skips should give their Leads More Responsibility and Respect

  

A Long Jack on Rink Three

I’ve got two gripes.

First, some skips, when playing in club or social games, just move the jack back in-bounds and center it, when a lead delivers it out of bounds or into the ditch. I know: you just want to speed up the game, but give a thought to the other lead on the rink. You are taking away that fellow’s chance to show proper mastery of line and length delivering the jack. When you don’t send the jack back to be rolled by the other side, you are effectively saying that mat position and jack length don’t matter as far as you are concerned.

Second, and I particularly feel this is important playing fours: don’t put your weakest player as lead. Your weakest player should bowl second. You want a lead who can give you the jack length you call for; who can be first in onto the jack; and who can smoothly co-operate with you about mat movement. Just to-day I was playing fours against a team whose lead consistently delivered jacks longer than she could bowl! A good lead works with the skip to get a jack length most accommodating to the whole team. The weakest player on the team can’t do this. 

The picture has nothing to do with the gripes! The guy third from the left is Jeff Harding from Canada.The game is being played at the Valverde LBC in Portugal.

A Stubborn Lead

I am not a good enough bowler to be a good skip; however I am accommodating to draw-masters at social rollups, so I do end up playing skip when everyone else is unenthusiastic about the role. Also, I know the World Bowls Rules Crystal Mark III well enough to protect my team from ‘pretender officials’.

At Valverde Bowls Club at Almancil Portugal a few weeks ago, I was the skip in a triples game. We (three gentlemen) were being pummelled by three ladies. They had been playing middle to long jacks consistently. Finally we won an end and had a chance to change something. When teamed with an inexperienced lead that cannot dependably change to a requested length, the best way to guarantee a change is to ask for a repositioning of the mat.

Amazingly, to me, my lead simply refused to move up the mat when signalled to do so! It is true that one rarely sees such a tactic at Valverde LBC but apparently (I was at the head and couldn’t hear what was said) even after the opposing vice spoke to him, either he didn’t think it was within the rules or he just wasn’t disposed towards it. I just shrugged and proceeded with the game since anything else would be unsociable and upsetting to the team.

Interestingly, my wife’s comment was that everyone hates when you do that.

When Losing: Move the Mat When You Change the Length

Author in Vilamoura Portugal 2016

In a triples match on Monday at Valverde LBC, a missed opportunity by the opposition illustrated the importance of moving the mat to change length as opposed to simply shortening the roll from the two meter mark.  I was leading for my team and we were winning playing full length jacks. Our opponents, each time they won one of the odd numbered ends, tried a shorter jack coming back. The difficulty was that they didn’t change the mat position. They didn’t realize that both my vice and I were using an unusual discoloration on the green as a visible stare point (the Valverde green is otherwise annoyingly uniform?!) and this was helping us disproportionately.

If our opponents had moved up the mat at the same time as they changed the length, our very useful visible stare point would have become useless and our better bowling, with respect to line, might have deteriorated

Time on the Mat

According to the World Bowls’ Laws of the Sport of Bowls Crystal Mark Fourth Edition, no maximum time for delivering a bowl is set. That being said, it is a courtesy not to be the slowest person on the green all the time. In Australia, they say, “A fast game is a good game.”

This blog author confesses to being a slower bowler. From getting on the mat until my bowl comes to rest in the head (or elsewhere) I do take more time than most. I have bowled slowly ever since I started playing. After ten years I am still bowling more slowly than many others. I do not do this to annoy. It is just that I enjoy the game only if I feel I am doing the best I can, and I think that I need more time than others to produce my best outcome.

If you need a consolation to avoid guilt at your slowness, realize that more time is typically spent by skips and vices visiting the head between bowls than you, as lead or second, are ever likely to use preparing yourself on the mat.

Fortunately, with experience, everyone’s delivery becomes more grooved, and some things that the novice needs to consciously check, become automatic. Thus, experience will decrease the time you need to spend on the mat before grassing a bowl. In fact, one can reach a point where spending extra time before delivering your bowl becomes counterproductive. I think it is universally true; you start bowling better when your routine on the mat is consistent and abbreviated. In Australia, over the Canadian winters of 2014 and 2015, I was told, “When you step onto the mat, you should already have been signaled the skip’s instructions and know what you are to do. Just step up and deliver.” Note that you should not step onto the mat until you have received and understood what the skip wants from you. If the skip is slow signaling, too complicated, or difficult to understand, this does not subtract from the time you have to execute your delivery. Also, if you have questions about the length or the distance between bowls or between a bowl and the jack, ask these before you step onto the mat; thereby, preserving your delivery routine.

There is a caveat; if anything disturbs you as you perform what is supposed to become a grooved delivery, immediately stop, step back off the mat, and begin your routine again. If you feel you are losing your balance during a delivery hold onto the bowl and restart. If some uncertainty such as whether you have the correct bias jumps into your head- stop the delivery. These things won’t happen often, but you should take the proper corrective action. Consistent excellence in sport depends upon undisturbed routine. With experienced players, bad shots most often arise from a loss of mental concentration.