Summer Sports - Bowls
Consistency, Colour and Care...
Twenty-three year old Patrick Hulbert has been an international bowls player and representative for England in China and America, as well as a national competitions winner. He has eighteen junior international caps, fifty England representative caps and over seventy senior team caps for his home county, Leicestershire.
Here, he discusses what a professional bowls player expects from the green
green in good company. However, as an international player, I also enjoy the competitive nature of the game, and hope for certain things from a bowling green before I start to play and during the match. With many bowling greens now being maintained by willing and committed members of the bowling club, the day of the highly paid greenkeeper seems to have ended. The efforts made to maintain the greens are much appreciated, but it has to be said that there has been a decline of lawn bowls playing surfaces, certainly in the fourteen years I have been playing. So, before I go and play on a bowling surface, what would I hope for?
I
- A consistent line - A consistent pace - Green near as dammit all one colour - Grass not too long - Ditches level or even raised slightly - Flat surface CONSISTENCY
Consistent Line: Unlike many bowlers who like (and seem to expect) perfection, I am more than at home on a ‘tricky’ surface. When I first started playing, I used to play at a club which had a few issues with the surface and, so, became accustomed to ‘digging in’ during a
58 PC APRIL/MAY 2012
only play outdoor lawn bowls, choosing not to play the indoor format of the game. There is nothing better than playing in sunshine, on a wonderful village
match, and being patient with the green. My current club, New Lount Bowling Club in Leicestershire, is unarguably the best playing surface in the county and, quite possibly, the country. Drawing with a wide arc, with the green playing at a good pace, and with a dedicated team of about eight people working on the green, ensures the surface is in ‘tip top’ condition. However, when I say ‘consistent line,’ I do not mean that I expect, or even want, every surface to be really fast and take ‘lots of green’, meaning I have to push my bowls out wider so they will come back to the centre. I am quite content playing on a rink where you bowl ‘up the middle’, barely taking any bias whatsoever, finishing on the correct line to the jack. As long as this line is consistent, I am content. For instance, many greens are tricky because you put one bowl down and it finishes in a certain place, and then you put your next bowl down exactly the same, and you expect it to take the identical path to your last bowl, only to see it finish in a completely different place. These are the worst surfaces! You may as well toss a coin at the start of the match and the winner of the toss claims the game.
Consistent Pace: As odd as this sounds, many outdoor greens do not have a consistent pace! I am mainly referring to when the green has become scorched in patches and brown. This usually happens when it has been hot, and the area has not been watered (though it is very rarely
hot!). But, I have also played on greens where grass has been burnt by overly concentrated fertiliser. This, once again, harks back to the fact many greens are now maintained by passionate club members - amateurs at turf management, rather than trained professionals who, inevitably, cost a lot of money to hire for clubs.
If your bowl is stopping and starting depending on what patch your bowl is on, skill does not have much to do with the outcome of the game or your bowl. Apart from an inconsistent line, there is nothing worse than an inconsistent pace. Here's a scenario: you think your bowl is perfect on the lightning fast surface -
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