Taking the Mat or Giving It Away: A Lawn Bowling Summary

The Greenbowler has written more than one blog article about this strategic decision. I have swayed one way and then another. Now after several years of experience, I want to draw some cumulative conclusions.

Intra-Club Social Bowling

When bowling with teams randomly drawn for fun, give the mat away. The reasons are that

(i)                the opposition is very unlikely to move the mat

(ii)              moving the mat causes your lead, who is usually an inexperienced bowler, to get nervous

(iii)            moving the mat can cause real anger outbursts from the opposition

(iv)            many older bowlers think it is against the rules to move the mat for the first end (it isn’t)

(v)              your lead may be able to learn something from the track of the opening bowl

(vi)            there is an advantage to having the last bowl

Competitive Bowling

When bowling in competition with teammates, with whom you have practiced, take the mat. The reasons are that

(i)                your team has already decided and practiced this so it won’t create nervousness for your side

(ii)              if it is the opposition’s home green, they will be most familiar with bowling with the mat on the T so you will want to move it

(iii)            in the first end it is not recommended that the skip play heavy shots so the advantage of the last bowl is reduced

(iv)            your lead will have the chance to deliver both jack and bowl with the same ’rhythm speed’ thereby increasing the chance to be right on the jack

(v)              your lead can choose his/her natural length

(vi)            moving up the mat can seriously annoy some opponents causing loss of concentration

(vii)          once the mat is centered up the rink, your lead can place a chalk mark on the centerline at the center front edge of the mat so the same position can be quickly reproduced in later ends (where the centerline is not already marked)

(viii)        if your lead is differently handed from the opposing lead, he/she can bowl from the edge of the mat so that the opponent cannot follow this opening rack

Post Script

In a competition, if you want to play your second-best triples player as your lead, let the opposition play first. You do not have to reveal the order of your team members until after the opposing lead delivers that bowl!

Changing Mat Position and Jack Length at Bowls

Which rink am I playing on?

Here are what I think are the key points concerning changing the mat location along with changing the jack length. Some of these assessments may be controversial. That is what the comment section is for.

⦁ If you are the lead, let your skip know if you are comfortable with moving the mat and changing lengths
⦁ Changing mat position and length in pairs, triples, and fours games is mainly used to help your lead outdraw the counterparty
⦁ Never change a winning trend….. always a losing one. Winning the last end does not constitute a trend.
⦁ If you need to change, change the mat position and length at the same time.
⦁ If it upsets the opposition more than it upsets your side, it is working!
⦁ Particularly when using a nonstandard mat position, visualize the path of your bowl before delivery.
⦁ Your initial delivery line at a new mat position should be parallel to the line you would have taken from a mat on the 2-meter mark; that is, your aim point on the bank gets narrower as you move the mat forward.
⦁ After your first delivery from this new mat position adjust your line; the rink is not flat and you are bowling across different ground.
⦁ If you get possession of the mat and need two or more points in the upcoming end, change the mat position. Although, the change may be just as likely to lose you two or more points as win them, if you must have more than a single you should risk it. 
⦁ If you are taking the mat well up the rink and plan to play a short end with a less experienced lead, place the mat two meters short of the hog line and call for the jack two meters from the front ditch. This gives your lead the greatest leeway to deliver an acceptable jack.

Delivery at Lawn Bowls: Subtracting Weight

Steve McKerihan is a perennial player on Canada’s Commonwealth Games Lawn Bowling teams and a frequent coach for lawn bowling skills development. He is also the father of Kelly McKerihan one of the premier lawn bowlers in the world.

Last week we were in a group chatting after a mens’ interclub match and he mentioned that a dependable way to take off weight, when your previous bowl is a meter or so long is to deliver this next bowl with the same arm speed and body weight transfer but to not stay down when you deliver your bowl but to start to rise as you release it. The reason why this should work is that by lifting your body as you release the bowl, you transfer some of the horizontal energy which is what moves the bowl down the rink, into a vertical component of energy that is wasted. As a consequence the bowl doesn’t travel quite as far.

The physics of this was immediately incontrovertible to me. Furthermore, this is why you are told to stay down throughout your delivery if you don’t want to be short. I said to Steve, “On Youtube I have seen top bowlers not staying down and I thought they were making a mistake.”

“No, no” was his reply, “they are just subtracting weight.”

Well, I’ve been bowling seven years now and I’ve attended weight control clinics and I’ve never heard this. What’s more important I’ve been trying it and it works!

Lawn Bowls Rules:When a Bowl Falls

I know Laws of the Sport of Bowls Crystal Mark Third Edition pretty well, but a situation occurred in a club roll-up the other night when I wasn’t so sure.

I got it right on the rink but I rushed home afterwards, got a beer from the fridge, and started thumbing through my reprint of the rules. Here is the situation:

 the end is finished; the vices go to measure but before they can do anything one of the earliest bowls delivered, which is close to the jack, falls. It becomes the closest bowl although it appears that an opposition bowl probably would have been shot if this first bowl had not fallen.

I advised that the now fallen bowl, which was now closest to the jack, was shot.

I knew that the rules stated that any member of either team could have placed a support against the tilting bowl before measuring began, but no one had done so. I knew that a skip could request that everyone wait 30 seconds after the final bowl of the end to see whether a bowl would fall before wedging it. However these rules clearly did not apply in this case.

My subsequent research shows that the relevant rule is 23.6.3

“[I]f a bowl falls of its own accord, it must be left in its new position while deciding the number of shots scored continues, and all the shots agreed before the bowl fell will count;”

Since no shots had been agreed before the bowl fell, my interpretation is that the head is counted with the fallen bowl in its new position.

Interestingly, since we won the game by one point, this decision eventually determined the winner on the night.

Moving the Mat at Bowls

Walk along behind the rinks at your local club. More likely than not most of the mats being played from are set within two feet of the T line. In almost every one of those matches one team is losing (ties excepted). In quite a few, one team is losing by more than three shots.  Why haven’t these skips started looking for a change that can turn their fortunes around? Yes, you can change the length without moving the mat but remember that when you are losing, you may not get that many chances to control the mat. Why not introduce two changes in one end? If you can turn it around you won’t be able to tell which change worked for you or whether it was the combination but we aren’t running a clinical trial here. You are just trying everything to give yourself a chance to win.

If a team loses badly and the skip has not taken every opportunity to alter the conditions of play by changing length and moving the mat, the loss should be charged to the skip. It is my opinion that when a skip falls behind by three or more shots, (s)he should make some change when the mat is regained.

What do you think?

A Proposed Improvement in the Rules for Bowls Sets Play

Contested to the End

Increasingly, lawn bowls at the professional indoor and even club levels has moved to sets play. Two sets of anywhere between 9 and 11 ends are played. If one team wins both or wins one and ties the other, that team wins the match. If each team wins one of the two sets, there is a 3 end tie-breaker. This is scored as best bowl wins the end. The side that wins two of these extra ends wins the match.

What seems to me to be unfair is that the choice of which side either has possession of the mat or the last bowl in the first and third ends is determined by a coin toss. I feel it would be an improvement if this advantage went to the side that had the best overall score when the two sets are considered together. For example, if side A wins the first set 11-2 and losses the second set to side B 10-11. The overall score is 21-13 in A’s favor and it should receive the choice in ends 1 and 3. If the overall score is also tied then a coin toss would be appropriate.

This modification of the rules would have another advantage. A team that is seriously behind in the first set would need to continue to play hard to narrow the gap they lose by to try to preserve an increased chance if the match ended up in a tie-break. As the rules now stand, a team losing the first set badly can give up the first set before it is actually over and just start preparing for the second set.

Short Bowls: The Number 1 Problem of Social Lawn Bowlers

The picture above shows a not-atypical head from a club triples game.  Because bowlers focus on the jack when assessing their proper weight more than 50% of shots don’t make it up to the jack. This is a waste because if the jack is touched by a bowl it essentially always moves back and away from whichever bowls have been left short. Another disadvantage of bowling short is that when such a bowl falls, it falls away from the jack. On the other hand, a bowl delivered behind the jack normally falls back towards the jack bringing it closer.

Skips can easily repair this deficiency simply by putting down their foot as the target one meter behind the jack. Imagine how different the above picture of a head would look if all the bowls were a meter further up the green. There would be many more bowls snuggling around the jack with a few good ‘catcher’ bowls behind it.

More about Choosing Your Stare Point in Lawn Bowls

I have found that choosing a stare point about 5 meters in advance of the front edge of the mat works best for me. In fact, when helping beginners, I often make a chalk mark at that distance at approximately the correct angle for their bowls’ bias. This way the beginner gets a clearer idea of whether (s)he is properly controlling their delivery angle just by watching whether his or her bowl passes over the chalk mark.

Regular bowlers must struggle to identify slight imperfections in the grass or carpet to stare at. I have found recently that squatting on the mat while looking down at the far bank helps me choose a stare point that is truly on my aim line. There is a bonus. After I stand up and assume my erect delivery stance, all this time holding that stare point, I deliver my bowl more quickly, because the longer I have to hold my stare point the more likely my view of it will slip! As a consequence, I bowl better and faster.

If your club uses ground sheets all the time to protect the green from dumpers making divots (Etobicoke in Toronto)you can derive an additional advantage. The front edge of the ground sheet is about three meters in advance of the front edge of the mat. Often one can find a mark on this edge and move it onto your aim line by shifting your anchor foot position slightly on the mat. Thus, for example, by moving your setup position on the mat slightly your chosen aim point on the front bank and some distinctly visible mark on the front edge of the ground sheet can be lined up, so that all you need to do is roll your bowl over this distinct mark. This strategy is made easier by the change in the World Bowls Rules that now only requires a part of one foot to be on or over the mat at the moment  the bowl is released from your hand.
This strategy is particular useful at clubs (such as Etobicoke LBC) where a small V cut has been made in the center of each end of the ground sheet to assist in centering it. Using this V-cut in the ground sheet is particularly  useful when bowling in the evening under artificial lights where seeing clearly is more of a struggle.