Lawn bowling provides gentle, healthy exercise and competition in a relaxed social atmosphere for all ages. It is easy to learn but difficult to master. Many people are naturally good right away and can be more competitive than beginners in most other sports.

 

Unlike the sports of alley bowling and bocce ball, to which lawn bowling is sometimes compared, lawn bowling does not use a ball. It uses a bowl. If one can imagine a ball with the sides slightly flattened, this somewhat describes the shape of the bowl used in lawn bowling. The bowl is delivered so that it ‘rolls’ on the curved surface between the flattened sides. The way in which the lawn bowl is made – one flattened side slightly heavier than the other forces the delivered bowl to follow a curved path; in fact – unless thrown at a very high speed – it is virtually impossible to make it follow a straight path.

 

It is this feature of a curved path that gives lawn bowling its greatest challenge, interest, frustration, mystique, strategies and ultimate satisfaction. The gentle sport of lawn bowls shares this curved path feature with curling. Sometimes, lawn bowling is referred to as “curling on grass”. In fact, these two sports share many terms, such as skip, head, weight, draw, take-out, hog line, amount of ‘ice’/’grass’ and jitney, but not sweeping. The curved path feature gives rise to some interesting and varied elements of delivery technique and game strategies.