Pushers and the ‘Shuffleboard’ Delivery

Lawn bowling grips can be divided into two categories. Those in the first category allow a person to hold a lawn bowl with arm and fingers of that hand pointed straight down.  These are all variants of the ‘claw’ between thumb and fingers. The second category of grip uses gravity to hold the bowl on top of some variant of a palm/fingers combination. These are variations of the palm grip.

People who suffer from arthritis may not be able to use their thumb to secure a bowl. No variation of claw grip is possible for them. They have no choice but palm grips. If these bowlers are to have any backswing, they must bend their elbow as they draw their arm back so that the bowl is steady in the palm of their hand. Bowl and arm are then pushed forward to release the bowl just as is done pushing the disc in shuffleboard. In fact I am calling this a shuffleboard delivery. Because fingers must be under the bowl, the bowl quite literally rolls off the finger tips.  A variant of bowling arm ( the Ubi Launcher^TM MSV Sports) is designed based on the same type of delivery. With some claw grips the fingers are more nearly down the back of the bowl rather than under it. The majority of bowling arms have adopted a mimic of the claw grip with two prongs symmetrically behind the bowl and one retractable one gripping the bowl on the running surface in front.

 Another way to handle these limitation on hand flexibility and hand strength is to get rid of any backswing while still using the palm grip. The starting position for forward motion is the bowling arm more or less vertical with the bowl in the palm grip, and the wrist slightly cocked so the palm is more or less horizontal under the bowl. The thumb is either under or along the side of the bowl.  In this configuration, the person executing the shuffleboard delivery needs to take a relatively longer step forward to add more velocity for long jacks on slow greens. All the bowl’s energy must come from faster combined body/arm movement, because there is no potential energy providing extra speed from elevation of the bowl. In another variant the bowler starts with the advancing foot already completely out in front. This is the complete ‘pusher’s’ delivery.

When the fingers are under the bowl the delivery seems to be much more sensitive to the location of the index finger on the running surface. When the fingers are more behind the bowl when it is released onto the carpet finger position seems to be of lesser importance.

Because these ‘shuffleboard’ bowlers need to accelerate their arm motion so much to get the required bowl velocity, they have an increased tendency to release the bowl too far in front of their advancing foot. This causes frequent narrow bowls for long jacks on slower greens.

The Effective Rate Statistic to Grade Lawn Bowling Performance

Commentators on lawn bowls videos often mention a competitor’s ‘effective rate’. A bowl is commonly seen as 'effective' if it improves the provisional score, i.e. it reduces the count against, converts, or increases the count in favor. This criterion remains fairly valid even in adverse conditions, i.e. when there is a gusty, variable wind, which tends to spread heads because the conditions affect all competitors. An alternative measure, distance from the jack, is strongly affected by weather and rink conditions. Effective rate also remains fairly valid within different levels of skill (i.e. A grade, C grade, etc). Another advantage is that collection of 'effectiveness' data can be done during a competition without intrusion or distraction. Thus commentators can have a running score for the effective rate for every competitor.

A perfect game does not correlate with a 100% effective rate because covering shots, block shots, and other positional bowls may not fit the ‘effective’ definition even though they are tactically correct.

A bowler competing out of his class will lose his matches badly and will have a very low effective rate. To win an end in singles one must achieve at least an effective rate of 25%; that is, the last bowl must convert the head! A bowler can lose an end even if his effective rate on the end is 100% if he bowls first because his competitor can still convert the head and score with the last bowl. The median effective rate thus is likely to be around 62-63%. Top bowlers playing well can have effective rates of 85%.

2015 Greenbowler Blog Present for Followers

Whether you are a practicing Christian or not, I want to wish all my followers a happy and peaceful Christmas, and a prosperous and successful New Year in 2016.

The unusually mild and dry weather these last few days in Toronto, Canada has allowed me the extraordinary pleasure of practicing outside on the synthetic green at James Gardens both yesterday and the day before. A fortnight from now I expect to be playing again in the Algarve province of Portugal at the Vilamoura and Valverde Lawn Bowls Clubs.

As a gift for all, I recommend a link below to an  exciting singles match from the 2014 world indoor championship. It features a rare, intentional short blocking shot at the end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZxMYJ6KCK0

Going Overseas to Bowl

The last month of the year is dribbling away. In Canada, the weather is getting near zero Celsius. Soon there will be snow in Toronto but New Year’s Eve my wife and I will fly away to Portugal where we will get the chance to lawn bowl at the Valverde and Vilamoura lawn bowling clubs in the state of Algarve.  We will stay until the end of March. The average daily temperature there is only between 9°C and 16°C, but temperatures in the sun are reported to be in the low twenties. This can’t match the 30-40 degrees in Australia at the same time of year but for hearty Canucks it will be just fine! We are told we will meet a lot of Brits in spring training for the 2016 English outdoor bowls season and because the area depends so much on tourism not knowing Portuguese will be no problem.
I’m already champing at the bit. I would be lost in retirement without bowls.

Round Robin Play at Lawn Bowls

During the summer I was involved in the Mens’ Novice Pairs Ontario Provincial Championship. The first day of this tournament is a four-team round-robin in which the best two teams advance. There are only three possibilities for the outcomes among four teams in a round robin 3:2:1:0, 2:2:2:0, and 3:1:1:1. 

In such a playdown, two things are important:  first, winning at least two games if possible, and second, having high ‘points for’ in games among teams that end up tied with you. The regular strategy applies in the first two games. You play your best percentage shots trying to either win or keep the margin of loss slim.

But notice that in such a round-robin, thirty-three percent of the time you can advance even if you win only one game, so long as your ‘points for’ are enough! So, if, after you have played your first two games, you still have not had a win, your only chance is to win your final game while at the same time building up your ‘points for’.

 If you have been badly shut down in your earlier matches, you need lots of points in your final game; therefore, you must expose your side to extra danger whenever it will improve your chances of having big ends. If those extra risks cause you to lose a third game, you haven’t lost much. Most probably you were going home anyway. 

Using a Cocked Wrist in the Lawn Bowl Delivery

While I was watching Nev Rodda’s video teachings the shooters’ stance, I realized that my wrist position was different. The way I was holding the bowl in the claw grip, my curled fingers were close to being in a straight line with my forearm. Nev, on the other hand, held the bowl in what he described as a scoop, with the wrist cocked and then locked at that angle so that it was his thumb that was on the straight line which can be imagined extending down the center of the forearm. It was not that my hand/forearm connection was not locked during a delivery but my locked position was not the same as his.

The way I had been holding the bowl required it to roll off my fingertip(s) onto the green. With the Nev Rodda wrist position, removing the thumb pressure releases the bowl which simply drops a few centimeters onto the carpet, because, using the claw grip in the scoop position, the fingers are at the back of the bowl rather than under it.

Because the bowl is no longer rolling off the fingers, it is less critical where the fingers last contact the bowl, although at least the middle finger should still be centered on the running surface since it pushes at the back of the bowl.

In 2020 I changed my view and wrote a blog about the reason.    

How No Dead Ends Changes Bowls

At one of the lawn bowling clubs to which I belong, we have, since 2013, implemented the rule that there would be no dead ends. If the jack is knocked out of play it will be centered two meters from the front ditch and play will go on. As usual, if the bowl that knocked out the jack ends up in the ditch within the boundaries of the rink it will be a toucher.  The professionals use multiple re-spot positions in their sets play, but this adds additional work setting up the rink before play begins.

This rule change increases the probability that a drive will have a successful outcome because the drive bowl will very likely end up in the ditch or very near the repositioned jack. Bowling to short jacks becomes even more complex because there is now a new possibility to evaluate. Back bowls have a heightened importance and the bowl(s) closest to the re-spot position(s) can be most important of all.

If a very close bowl becomes shot against you, playing no dead ends the odds are improved for the tactic of simply starting to accumulate back bowls near the respot position(s) if your skip is skilled at driving. Hitting the jack, which formerly just blanked the end, can now win big for your team if you have several well-placed back bowls.

As a corollary, where re-spot is implemented, the block shot can be expected to become more important. This should be true particularly on slower greens where bowling angles are narrower. In these cases, once a bowl has been placed close up to the jack, the team that owns that fortunate bowl may be more induced to try to place block shots to dissuade the opposition from driving to get a re-spot. The alternative is to match back bowls early on once a good draw shot has been obtained.  Your back bowls perhaps should be near the re-spot position(s). This is called 'running for cover'.

This rule change will also impact another popular form of lawn bowls. Under re-spot rules, the drive will become part of the 4-3-2-1 game, because a re-spotted jack can completely change the count; for example taking a player from a shutout position to dominance in an end. Prepare for some long measures!

Another Singles Strategy

In the professional indoor lawn bowling match that you can watch on YouTube, the marker tells the players the length of the jack. In your club game it is your guesstimate.

This difference is the basis for a match strategy that you might find profitable. I used it this year in winning the James Gardens mens' singles club championship. Because the length of jack is not announced by the marker, the player who bowls the jack has an advantage not available in the professional contest. If you delivered it, you have a somewhat better idea of its length than your opponent because you have just felt the weight of that delivery. If you have practiced delivering a particular weight, you know rather precisely the correct velocity to provide to your first bowl.

Furthermore, by frequently moving the mat, you can continue to deliver that same length, yet disguise it so that your opponent cannot easily see that there is no change in length. For example, in my final match at James Gardens, I delivered short 23 meter jacks from mat positions at 2 meters, 6 meters and 10 meters out from the rear ditch. My opponent had to figure out the proper weight for each of these, but I knew from rolling the jack that every one of these was close to 23 meters away. Because I kept winning ends, I retained the jack and could keep applying the strategy.

Delivering the jack from an mat position except 2 meters from the back ditch is already unusual in Canada (probably because the center of the rink is not marked with a line), so placing the mat at 4 or 10 meters from the ditch is already surprising for an opponent. Players rarely practice such deliveries. Moreover, questioning whether a jack is 21 meters from the front edge of the mat is much more uncertain when the hog line cannot be used to judge it.