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.

Maple Key Obstacles on the Bowling Green

This week, the James Garden lawn bowling club’s synthetic green is covered with last year’s maple seeds (called keys) that the swirling wind has blown all over the surface from the nearby park trees.

Maple keys have a thin flat wing portion that lies flat on the ground and will not disturb the path of a bowl, but each seed also has a hard round part, like a little ball bearing, that will not roll but can distinctly change the path of a lawn bowl and can stop it dead when the bowl has slowed down.


Although these seeds can be swept up, more keep blowing in if there is a wind, and those already on the green keep moving from one place to another. These add an extra obstacle to competitive bowling. Some people say that bad greens are just as bad for everybody but this is not true. Bad greens penalize better players more. The more random luck that is introduced, the more likely the poorer team is to win a match.

In the presence of maple keys littering your rink the best strategy is to throw short jacks and drive at the jack if you get down several bowls in an end. The maple keys don’t throw off fast moving drives to the same extent and if you try to draw to save there is a good chance your bowl could be sent off course by one of these seeds.  

Squatting Helps 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. When helping to instruct beginners, I often make a chalk mark that far out 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.

The rest of us 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 the 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 focus on my stare point the more likely my view of it will slip! As a consequence, I bowl better and faster.

Any Delivery Can Work So Long as it is Reproducible

At a time of year when club mentors for new bowlers are teaching the elements of the draw shot, we should be sensitive to the fact that, because of minor frailties, many of the new bowlers cannot deliver from the athletic position. The previous post suggests the different possibilities that bowlers could adopt. To emphasize the point that any delivery can give extraordinary results, so long as it can be reproduced exactly I direct readers to a video that shows  Ian (Tails) Taylor bowling at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lfeYIPR_NI. No-one will have a delivery more complicated and more difficult to reproduce than this. So remember: the reason coaches teach what they do is because what we teach are the simplest deliveries and these are the easiest to groove into a good habit.