Playing Lawn Green Bowls


This is a short guide to the game of bowls, aimed at the complete beginner. Its intention is to get you interested in having a go yourself - which you can do by coming along to the Smiths Dock Park and introducing yourself.

The aim of the game

You stand on a small rubber mat near one end of a rink on the bowling green. Near the other end is a small white ball, called the jack. You roll the bowl, or 'wood' in your hand to travel up the green so that it ends up touching the jack. However, Judge both the weight and the direction so that you get the wood next to the jack and you've got the perfect delivery!


Team games

The game can be played as "singles" or in teams of two, three or four players called "pairs", "triples" or "fours". Four "pairs" bowlers use four woods each. Six "triples" bowlers use 3 woods each, while eight "fours" players use two woods each Playing in teams means that there are several other people playing alongside you. This is what makes bowls such a good game socially - there's always plenty of time for a chat and a joke with fellow team members and opponents.
It also means that as well as your bowls, there will also be many others being sent up the green. Depending on how these end up, the options open to the players who come to the mat later on are many and various. You can try to hit the jack so that it goes towards a team-member's bowl - you can try to knock another bowl closer to the jack, or away from it - you can try to use another bowl to help to deflect yours nearer the jack - you might even want to "fire", which means propelling your bowl with such force that it goes in a dead straight line and knocks its target clean out of the way.

Sending a bowl

The bowl, or "wood", is not a perfect sphere. The wood has a "bias", which means that it rolls in a curve as it goes up the green. As you stand on the mat, you have the choice of sending it on a curve that bends to the left or to the right, and you achieve this by the way you hold the bowl in your hand. If you get this wrong, the bowl heads off in completely the wrong direction - it's called getting the "wrong bias".
The two "hands" for bowling are called forehand and backhand - beginners usually find that one is easier then the other, but it is important to feel comfortable with both, as otherwise you will be severely limited in the shots you can play. If you are left-handed your forehand will be the right-hander's backhand, etc.
The rules state that you must have one foot touching or over the mat as the bowl is released. You don't have a "run up" as in ten-pin bowling, but you can move forward as you bowl. The important thing is to be comfortable and balanced, and to make sure that your bowling arm comes through in a straight line - otherwise the bowl won't go in the direction you want it to!


Then there's the weight! The amount of push you put into the shot. Getting this right is one of the trickiest aspects of bowling, as so many factors come into play - the position of the jack, the purpose of the shot, the speed of the green, and even the weather conditions. For most of us, this takes a lot of time to master - and even the best of us get it wrong more often than we'd like!

Playing an end

In team games each player has a specific role. In the Fours game the lead player of one side sends the jack up the green before playing his first wood. The second player is responsible for keeping the score. Number three does any measuring of disputed bowls, and the skip makes the decisions as to how he wants his players to send their woods. At the start of an "end", the third and fourth players stand at the same end as the jack, called the "head"
You play alternately with your opposite number, one wood at a time. When the leads have finished, the seconds play theirs, then leads and seconds walk up the green while the threes walk down to have their turn. Finally the threes and skips change places so that the threes can direct the skips as to the best shots to play. Having someone at the "head" when you bowl is always helpful, as you have a very different view of things from the mat. When the score is decided, play starts on the next end playing back down the green, with the winners of the end having the honour of playing first. This is important because the team that sends the jack determines the nature of the next end - a "short jack" makes for a different style of bowling than a "long jack".

Touchers

If a wood hits the jack as it is delivered, it counts as a "toucher" - and is given a chalk mark by one of the players standing near the "head". This can be important later on if that wood is later sent off the end of the rink and into the ditch. Woods that were not touchers are removed and don't count towards the score, but a toucher stays put, and can count. You sometimes have the situation in which a wood collects the jack and takes it into the ditch in such a way that no other wood can possibly get closer - the end has been won already, and the rest of the woods can only get as close as possible to determine the size of the score.

Scoring

When all the woods have been sent, it's time to work out the score. All the woods that are closer to the jack than the closest wood of the opposition count as the score for the winning team. It is therefore possible to score a maximum of eight when playing fours, nine in triples or eight in pairs. This is extremely rare, is known as a "hot shot", and entitles you to wear a special badge! Ones, twos and threes are the more usual results. Working out the score is the job of the third player in "fours", and it's bad manners for anyone else to butt in while this job is being done. Sometimes it is necessary to use a measure to work out which woods count. The winning team then takes the mat and starts the next end - an advantage in that they can determine the length of the end, but the opposition skip will send the final wood that could make all the difference! A normal match played between clubs consists of 21 ends, but can be longer or shorter if so desired. Common practice is to only count one shot on the first two ends - this gives everone a chance to work out the speed of the green in both directions, without giving a big advantage to either side.

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