Illustrating the Importance of Controlling the Mat

 

The importance of control of the mat so that one can dictate jack length is sometimes not emphasized enough. An entertaining Youtube video of a match between Katelyn Inch and Chloe Stewart forcefully reminds us of that principle.  The match exhibits massive swings correlating with the choice of the mat length. 

The match has another teaching at the 2:46:30 minute mark. Chloe has a perfect position with counting bowls immediately in front of and immediately behind the jack but she accidentally disturbs the head while trying to place her next delivery behind the head. The jack becomes exposed and Katelyn is able to take advantage. A short blocking shot that would force Katelyn either to avoid it when driving at the head or change hands for a run-through shot would have been better tactics and wouldn’t risk disturbing the head.

The Ten Top Greenbowler Lawn Bowling Blogs

Ryan Bester at Broadbeach

 

I've been posting The Greenbowler Blog for seven years. Although, as the editor, I can see which of my 228 posts have been more popular this information is not readily available to readers although posts can be selected by keywords using the search tool in the right-hand column of each blog article. So below, I list, each with its own link, my 10 most popular blog articles of all time. If this proves useful and there is a demand for it, I will supply links for numbers 11-20 later.

1. The Secret to Controlled Weight

2. Strategy and Tactics at Bowls

3. Lawn Bowling from the Shooters Stance

4. Measuring at Bowls

5. Jack or Bowl: Reading the Head

6. Strategy of Leads at Pairs

7. Controlled Weight

8. Choosing your Correct Bias for Bowls

9. Delivering Bowls with a Cocked Wrist

10. Henselite Supergrip Championship Bowls

Covid-19 Provides the Opportunity to Practice Bowling to Severely Displaced Jacks

 

All over the world, Covid-19 restrictions have mandated that lawn bowlers must only play or practice on alternate rinks. Although there is much that this order prevents it does enable one thing. In our practice routines, we can all now include bowling to jacks that have been displaced to locations close to the side boundaries.

While play is normally permitted on all the available rinks practicing drawing to a jack near a boundary of one’s own rink frequently requires either bowling across a neighbor’s rink or delivering inside out bowls that end up out of bounds on that neighbor’s rink or interfering with a neighbor’s natural draw line as he/she tries to draw to a centered jack on that adjacent rink.

Now with the rinks on either side of your practice rink ordered empty by the Covid regulations, there are no neighbors to annoy. Let us therefore boldly seize this chance. It is my fervent wish that this opportunity will soon disappear and never return!

Considering a Block Shot

 

A good block shot is hard to deliver. Even when the bowl seems to have ended up in its best location, it often proves ineffective when the opposing skip understands how to ‘use the mat’ to get around that interfering bowl. Usually placing a bowl instead close to where the jack is most likely to be moved to is the best percentage play; however, I think a block needs to be considered, if only for its psychological impact,

When:

yours is the next-to-last bowl (penultimate) and a few of the following conditions coexist:

•  You have one shot within a foot of the jack and a close second. 
•  The back (particularly re-spot) is already covered.
•  It would be very demoralizing if your side disturbed the head.
•  The opposing skip has an excellent drive.  
•  The target presented is large and/or close.
•  The rules permit ends can be burnt. 
• There is really only one hand that affords a realistic approach to the head. 
•  The opposing skip has recent experience with only one particular hand in this direction. 
•  You are in the last 1-2 ends and you are ahead.
•  You absolutely need the opponent to miss because you need the full count.
•  There is a funnel configuration leading into the jack.
• There are two or three enemy bowls in front but not counting.

 

Caution: You do not want to attempt a block shot before the penultimate shot (next to last), because you would not want to block yourself if the situation in the head changed in the opponent's favor after your block.

Where:  

Against either a Run-through or Drive

A blocking shot directed against either a run-through shot or a drive is thrown just over 14 meters and placed in the anticipated bowl’s path. This is accomplished by aiming at a point midway between the center and the edge of the rink. Advance the stepping foot completely along the aim line and place it at an angle of 45 degrees to the line. This is the stance of a push bowler. No weight is transferred forward during the swing. From a completely vertical position with the bowling arm just hanging down the bowl is pushed out with the arm only and set rotating with the fingers. With this impetus, the bowl should travel about 14 meters.

Against a Run-Through via a Port
 

Where you want to close a port through which the opponent is likely to direct a run-through shot, bowl the opponent’s shot but be light and very slightly wide.

Against a Drive

To block both a forehand and backhand drive the blocking bowl needs to be past the hog line and close to the center line. About 3 meters in front of the head is good so that if it is hit it won’t disturb the head itself unless it is struck in the absolute center.

Adding a bowl at the back is the correct play if the opposition can score a multiple if the jack is sent backward. Placing a bowl behind, among opposing bowls, is much easier than placing a good block.

Some opponents never drive. Some only draw, others may also try a shot through the head. It is useful to know the particular style of your opponents. There is no point in countering a shot that is never going to be contemplated!

Tactical Shots at Lawn Bowls

 

Turramurra LBC

There are four distinguishable tactical shots in lawn bowls. The draw shot has as its target its final ending place.… that is, the shot is successful if your bowl finishes precisely where you are aiming it to go. Both the yard-on shot and the running shot,  in contrast, are successful if they don’t reach the spot the bowler is aiming for. Their purpose is to hit something in the head as they pass through it toward their target destination. The drive is distinguished in that if it fails to hit its target it will always finish in the ditch or out of bounds.

The Draw Shot

A Draw Shot is the most frequent shot and it is really what the game is all about. For this shot, the player attempts to play with the exact weight and line required to finish closest to the jack.  Less frequent tactics may require drawing close to some other location on the rink often to protect against the jack being subsequently displaced backward or to block the path opponents may use to get bowls into the head. Mastering this shot is considered to be the most essential in all bowls.

 The Yard On Shot

The "Yard On" shot is a bowl that is played with enough weight to carry it, if unobstructed, a yard or two past the target but the line that is supposed to be taken causes it to pass through the head near the jack. The objective of this shot is usually to drag the jack away from opposing bowls, hopefully towards your own, or to push a bowl out of the "head" and take its place. In Scotland, this is often referred to as a "chop and lie" shot. The shot is more often successful on heavier greens where bowls express less of their bias. With ‘swingy’ bowls on a fast surface, the yard-on shot that misses its target often ends up well out of the head and is most often no longer a factor in play. 

The Running Shot or Ditch Length Shot

The Running Shot is one that uses more weight than the yard-on. The object of this shot is to remove the opponents’ bowls from the head, to move the jack to the ditch, or to seek some other result that requires the bowl to be played with weight. The difference between it and the drive is that the running shot has a greater chance of avoiding the ditch itself even if it misses its target. This is important when your side has no back bowls or when the jack is required to be respotted if the jack is driven out of bounds. This can be a difficult shot to play as the line (bias) required for hitting the target changes with different weights. The weight should be constant with the line adjusted to allow your bowl to pass through the head. The ditch length shot is less useful on fast greens because a bowl that misses the head is likely to finish out-of-bounds because of the greater curling of a bowl on a fast surface.

The Drive

The drive shot is a bowl that is played with the highest weight that one can muster without sacrificing accuracy of line. Striking the target, usually the head, with full force is the desired result. The tactical objective of this shot may be to completely remove the opponent's bowls from the head or from the rink or to drive the jack into the ditch or out of play. It is most often used when a player has at least several shots against him and they are mostly closer to the jack than he is likely able to draw. In this case, the object is to destroy the head by driving the jack out of the rink. When successful this results either in getting the end replayed (traditionally) or causing the jack to be repotted (recently) which may be advantageous. This can be a very effective and intimidating shot to have in your armory but many players have difficulty controlling their direction when concentrating their efforts on so much weight. With the respotting rule more frequently practiced today, less velocity and more accuracy are more likely to produce an advantage. When delivering the drive it is very important to release the bowl no more than six inches in advance of the forward foot since holding your bowl longer is likely to cause narrow bowling.  

Avoid Dropping your Bowl: A Back Swing for Palm Bowlers

 

Bowlers who use a palm grip have a special problem; because they do not position their thumb on top of the bowl they cannot squeeze the bowl firmly and so cannot dependably hang on to the bowl if they want to deliver with any significant backswing.

This isn’t always a matter of choice. Many bowlers, whether because of the length of their fingers or because of medical deficiencies, cannot grip with their thumbs. Not having any significant backswing can make delivering a bowl to longer jacks, for them, either challenging or impossible.

I believe I have stumbled upon a way to overcome this problem. While studying the deliveries of the best indoor lawn bowlers for blog articles about them, I noticed that Stuart Anderson holds his bowl with its running surface at an angle to the delivery line throughout his backswing. He then straightens his wrist either at the top of his backswing or during his forward swing and releases it with the bowl’s running surface parallel with his aim line. This differs from what is taught to most beginning bowlers who are taught either a straight backswing or a drawing back combined with a Bryant twist.  Anderson uses a claw grip so why he does this very individualistic thing is unclear. What is very clear is that it does not subtract from his efficacy. Anderson won the World Indoor Bowls championship in 2019!

What I came to realize however was that if palm bowlers adopted this change they could have a secure backswing in their deliveries without any complicating coordination of swinging and twisting their wrists as is so often taught in Australia and New Zealand. The reason this works is that if you align your hand like Anderson does when you take your backswing, your thumb, if it is at the side of the bowl, will end up under the bowl and hold it more securely in your hand!

I, myself, use a claw grip but even without practice, I was able to switch to a palm grip and still retain the same pendulum swing which I had become part of my standard grooved delivery.

Z Groove Sonic 3.5 Aero Bowls

 

The author of this Greenbowler blog purchased a set of factory-new Z Groove Aero bowls which he has used successfully for the past 3-4 years. I only bowl with them in Canada. When I travel to Portugal in the winter months, I use borrowed bowls, usually any old standard bias Henselite set.

In Canada, I bowl on a variety of surfaces. The James Gardens LBC has a 10-year-old sand-packed woven carpet that has a draw very similar to fast Australian greens. At Willowdale LBC they have two heavy grass greens that I would estimate to run about 10 seconds (this year because of the reduced use they are spongy and are cut so long that it is difficult to reach the forward ditch and your aim point should be half-way between the rink marker and the rink boundary!) Willowdale has a synthetic third green consisting of an artificial plastic rink consisting of sewn together strips over a rubber underlayer that runs maybe 14 seconds, where the aim line would typically run to the midpoint between the boundary marker and the rink number of the adjoining rink.  These Aero Sonics work satisfactorily on all these surfaces.

My hand is big enough that thumb to thumb, index finger to index finger, I can circumscribe a #4 bowl but with ordinary bowls, without the Aero groove, I had settled on using a #3 in order to gain a firmer grasp when driving or playing under wet conditions. Using the Groove technology I was able to go back up to a #3.5 thereby recovering the advantages of a slightly larger bowl. 

On the heavier greens more characteristic in Canada, the wind does not significantly deflect bowls to significant consequence, at least for even a good club player. Playing on a hard synthetic surface like James Gardens wind gusts do deflect deliveries. I am told that dimple grips reduce the drag on bowls and I think that the Z grip with a groove combination could provide greater stability in a wind in the same way that the dimples all over a golf ball decrease its wind resistance. To prove this point one would need to find a location with much flatter greens than the ones regularly encounters here.

Aero bowls do not follow a path mimicking the Sydney bridge. Fortunately, this is only marketing hyperbole. Like all bowls, they exhibit (roughly) about a quarter of their bias in the first 3/5ths of their travel, 1/4 in the next 1/5th, and the residual half in the last 1/5th. I also own a set of Taylor Vector VS bowls. The Z Groove Aero bowls seem to be a shade wide and enter the head a shade flatter than my Vectors but unless you are a champion or have observed both sets for a long time it is hard to spot the difference.

I do not use any form of Grippo product unless it conditions are wet or it is actually raining. Neither do I wet my fingers before bowling. The Z Groove might not be easy to play in these situations but I have no experience one way or the other. I can only imagine that it could be more tedious getting a uniform application of anything onto a bowl when there are indentations (the Z) in another indentation (the groove).

My set are the Solar Flare color which is yellow background with red flecks as in the picture. Playing on artificial surfaces impregnated with Canada goose shit can discolor the running surface with a greenish-grey shadow that cannot be removed with just soap and water. The KLR product which is used to clean away rust and soap grime from toilets and showerheads does clean up this problem and restore the original colors. 

Why One Aims with the Advancing Foot Bowling from the Shooters’ Stance

 

It makes a lot of sense to place your anchor foot at 45 degrees to the aim line for a lawn bowling delivery. Placed at an angle rather than parallel to the aim line gives more stability when all your weight is on one foot as one steps forward. But why should one step out with one’s advancing foot toe pointing at your stare point on your aim line as also recommended by New Rodda?

 

Following the same argument wouldn’t it give an even more stable base to have that advancing foot also come down firmly at an angle to the aim line? 

I couldn’t understand the difference until recently when I was thinking about a different problem. How could I bowl smoothly if my stepping foot landed with a jolt as I set it firmly down in my delivery? The answer appears to be that I would need to come down on my forward stepping heel and rock forward transferring my weight from heel to sole and finally to my toes as I walked off the mat. But this is only possible if one points the advancing foot  somewhat parallel to the aim line. 

So that is the real reason why Nev Rodda  says to use the advancing foot to aim: the purpose is not really to enhance your aim (as he says, “This is how I like to explain it.”) but rather to smoothly transfer weight from the anchor foot to the advancing foot!