After 6 Years Bowling: The Status of Weight Control

For more than five years, since I took up lawn bowls, I have been consciously trying to control the weight of my deliveries, based on the reported jack length. Such was my lack of confidence concerning my visual estimation of the length of the jack that I would ask my skip each end to call out to me how far past the hog line the jack was sitting. When I was skipping, I could be quiet. I had the advantage that I could pace off this distance on my way to the mat to deliver my bowls! When I delivered a bowl, I would consciously try to control the length of my back-swing in proportion with the distance to the jack. This is not best practice!!! It is just what I thought I had to do.  I didn’t believe I could depend upon the subconscious or the intuitive to help. Well the good news is: I was wrong. Even better news is: you don’t have to worry about it. So long as you take the time, standing on or just behind the mat to visualize the expected track of the bowl you are about to deliver, then, with experience, any attempt at conscious control of your arm speed will just fade away. If my experience has any generality, you will just one day say to yourself, “Gee, I’m not doing that anymore.” I still quite regularly ask how many meters the jack is past the hog line, but now it is just to give corroborating or more precise data to my subconscious control system. The caveat is the importance of imagining and visualizing, as best you can, the path of the bowl.

When One Hand has No Bias in Lawn Bowling

While skipping my team in an interclub match played on an end rink, I discovered that one hand had no bias at all. A bowl directed down the center line that normally would be expected to move from left to right stayed straight all the way. This occurs when the natural bias of the bowl is perfectly compensated by a slight uphill slope of the rink on that hand.

Usually I offer a team-mate playing lead the choice of which hand to bowl. My reasoning is that the bowler’s peace of mind regarding the shot to be played is usually more important than some slightly improved theoretical probability of success from one side or the other. In this case, for the first time in my life, I said, “I insist that you bowl this narrow side.”

If the path from mat to jack is straight, the first short bowl completely blocks that side of the rink. To give away to the opponents the first chance to bowl that side can shut that side down for you for the full end.

In my experience this odd situation  always arisen on an end rink and is accompanied by a very wide hand as the alternative (and also usually a very heterogeneous one).  

The Bowls Shot You Can Only Make on Slow Greens

Suppose you want to set a blocker against a normal draw shot. The minimum length you must deliver a bowl is 14 meters measured from the center front of the mat to the bowls location. The closer an intended blocker is to that 14 meters the more space it effectively protects; therefore, you most preferably want to deliver a block shot the minimum distance but still in the normal path of the opponent’s anticipated shot. At the same time, you do not want to risk sending your intended blocker out of bounds.

When the mat is set at two meters from the back ditch on a fast green you probably need an aim point at least as wide as the number on the adjacent rink, then  the optimal position for a blocker is very close to the side boundary and so it is too risky to attempt. (See the red line in the picture.)

In contrast, when the mat is set at two meters from the back ditch on a slow green where you need to choose an aim point no wider than the front side boundary marker, then there is little risk in delivering a bowl that is about 14 meters out and still in the path of your opponent’s anticipated draw shot (the green line).

This consideration does not apply to defending heavier run-through shots or drives. Because these aggressive shots are delivered with much narrower lines there is much less risk in setting short blockers against them. 

Avoiding Big Ends Against at Lawn Bowls

A bowls match is often lost because of one big end. Suppose you can foresee the onset of such an end; can you do something to mitigate it or reduce its probability?

I think you can. A big end against you occurs most often when:
Your lead bowls more than one short bowl
Your lead doesn’t get any bowls within 4 feet of the jack
You are shot but they have two or more seconds
You have no bowls in the head and your vice is erratic
What can you do? Stop your bowler when he or she steps on the mat with the stop sign. Signal that you need a bowl in the head. Signal for special concentration. Indicate the safer hand. The beauty of team bowls is that an indication of a critical situation is not a criticism of the bowler on the mat because it is not he or she that caused it. For this reason it does not increase anxiety it just urges more intense and better concentration and delivers better bowls when they are needed most.
What your side does not want to do is just leave it up to the skipper to get the side out of trouble. That is always possible but the solution needs to start before those last bowls.  

Good Line????

Soooo many times I’ve heard the opposing skip (in a club game) call out to the person on the mat, who has delivered a bowl such as in the picture above, “Great line just a bit more weight.” This is just wrong information! And, incredibly these people have played bowls for more than a few years! A bowl that stops in the pictured spot with respect to the jack has been delivered with too much grass (wide) and too little weight (velocity). So long as the rink is effectively flat, if the bowl were delivered with the correct weight and the same line it would end up at position Z in the picture. On the same flat rink, if the bowl were delivered with the same weight but the correct line it would end up at position X in the picture. To reach the jack the bowl pictured must be delivered somewhat narrower and somewhat heavier.

Consequently, every lawn bowl that you roll should send you back two pieces of information: what correction I need in weight and what correction I need in line. What makes lawn bowls such engineering marvels is that the correction you need to make in line does not alter the correction you need to make in weight. They are mutually independent.  A mathematician would say they are 'orthogonal'. In practice it means you can adjust your next delivery without a calculator- of course your muscles need to cooperate.

A Surprise Win

I’m not crowing. It was probably a fluke of nature; but, if my recounting of my bowls experience is going to be complete, I must note it. Playing mens’ pairs with the buddy who got me into bowls, we won an open provincial tournament!
 In the province of Ontario in Canada, the draw puts winners against winners so it is not possible to just get three easy opponents. So that doesn’t explain it. It was just a combination of simultaneous good play by both of us and a string of luck. However, the outcome was impressive. Since each match was just 12 ends, the maximum score was 18 with anything more just plus points yet our scores in the three successive matches were 18+4, 18+1 and 18+3!

As I have noted elsewhere, I have only played in a few open tournaments this year, because the pressure to perform well gives me butterflies. In fact this is just the second open tournament I have played in 2017 and this probable fluke is not going to change my decision. The important thing is to have fun and playing at my regular club level and practicing regularly gives me more peace of mind. I know that all the books say to compete against the best if you want to improve but apparently, this regime is good for me.

Proper Visualization of the Course of Your Lawn Bowl: the Final Secret to Controlling Weight

Barry Pickup says, “Study the track your bowl takes en route to the head. Learn that track, memorize it. Learn to visualize that track before you deliver a bowl. A properly delivered bowl will always follow the same track unless deflected by a foreign object or uneven green. Learn that track well and you are a long way towards bringing a bowl to rest exactly where you want it.”

Before a high-performance lawn bowler delivers a difficult shot, you will often see him or her standing about halfway down the rink looking at the head or walking backwards towards the mat. What is going on in that person’s mind?

I think after examining the head from near the forward ditch, the expert bowler has already made up his/her mind what shot to try. This close up looking from the direction of the mat most probably relates to the visualization of the shot. From the mat, the crucial details of the last few meters traveling of the bowl cannot be visualized. Often the bowl has already disappeared from view among the other bowls.

Before starting to roll your actual bowl, you should have rolled an imaginary bowl and followed it on its path all the way to its final resting place. It may seem like a waste of time. You may be put off because it seems no-one else is doing this. I resisted for five years! There is no obvious logic in it; but, it will improve your weight like nothing else will.

Head Reading at Lawn Bowls: The Entry Port Motif

An entry port on the right-hand side leading to the yellow jack: the rink runs from lower left to upper right

The chances for a successful draw to the jack are improved when the port configuration of bowls is present. A port is a funnel-shaped passage, ideally, that leads towards the jack at the same angle as the normal angle of draw of your bowl. The funnel shape is marked at two or more places by bowls so that if the delivery is either wide or narrow but a touch heavy it will be deflected back and funneled in the direction of the jack.

Ports are not visible from the mat. They need to be identified by the team member directing the head. Because it is the bowler who knows the bias of his own bowls best, the bowler often needs to be called to the head to confirm the wisdom of what is being proposed.