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    Getagame Gazette
    volume 2 no 4 March 2017

    Articles In This Edition
  • Quest for "Olympic Dream" draws closer
  • Queensland Bowler Sets World Record
  • Playing Fours :The Lead
  • Australian Open Entries closing 3rd April








  • Quest for "Olympic Dream" draws closer


    Last year a pathway for lawn bowls to achieve official International Olympic Committee (IOC) Recognition arose when our number of participating member nations was formalised to be in excess of fifty- a minimum requisite criteria
    And although there is more work to be done, a meeting last week in Lausanne, Switzerland at IOC headquarters, between senior officials and the world leadership of lawn bowls, saw a hearty welcome, and much positive and respectful reaction to the quality of World Bowls read on from the article from BowlsNZ


    Queensland Bowler sets World Record

    Lawn bowler Shayne Barwick completes 73-hour game to set world record, raises $20,000 for club
    A man in outback Queensland has endured blistering sun and heavy rain to set the world record for the longest continuous game of lawn bowls.

    Cloncurry Bowls Club manager Shayne Barwick started on Friday morning and played for 73 hours, rolling his final ball at 10:00am on Monday in front of a cheering crowd of supporters -- read on from the ABC news article




    Playing Fours The Lead
    This is the first of four articles which look at the advice given on playing traditional fours in the two most important books written on the game. The article gives links to other information and practise routines for the leader.

    THE LEADER
    Advice from R. T. Harrison 'Bowls the Text Book of the Gme: How to become a Champion'

  • The leader should quickly establish the good playing hand and stick to it

  • If your opponent drops short on the good hand don’t change but play through the bowl as if it was not there

  • Leads should practise throwing the jack and be able to draw it within a few inches of the skippers desired length

  • A leaders mission is ‘round the kitty’ even if beaten by both bowls: two bowls not too far away give later team members something to work on

  • On no account try to run the opponent off the kitty or move it to your first bad one

  • Advice from Glynn Bosisto ‘Bowling Along’

  • The importance of throwing the jack cannot be emphasized strongly enough. The leader should never depart from a length the team is playing successfully If the jack is bowled correctly the leader can expect to acquire to a surprising extent the actual touch and pace of the green. As an example he says if you roll a practice jack and deliver 4 bowls to it in most cases your first bowl will be the best

  • The leader will always try to place the vital second bowl to advantage If the first bowl is very close to the jack it is bad for second bowl to be short. Similarly if the opponent puts a bowl on the jack the lead must not be short with a subsequent bowl, but draw a close bowl behind the jack (two to three feet)

  • If the opponent has drawn a close shot the good leader will definitely NOT start poking at the head

  • On a windy day it may be better to bowl the wide side and aim to bowl a yard wide, thus giving you a 2 yard margin to allow for wind variations – better than running the risk of a bowl being blown away on the narrow side

  • A good leader’s bowl is any bowl which is within 15inches of the jack. However jack high bowls are not desirable because they will be moved. Bowls directly behond the head ask to be sat on for the shot The best leader’s bowls are about foot short or long at 45 degrees and between 6 and 18 inches of the jack.
  • Bosisto is a hard task master: the difference between good and jack high is very small


    THE BEST LEADER'S BOWLS and some LESS DESIRABLE LEADER'S BOWLS

    Harrison says back bowls are never required from a leader, while Bosisto says a back bowl is desirable if a previous bowl has been placed on the jack (but his standard is high – behind by no more than 2 feet.)

    Both writers probably played in times when the greens were not as reliably good as today, and they place a lot of emphasis on finding the better drawing side and sticking to it.

    The case against bowling round the clock is not so strong on modern greens (but it is still valid because why remember the green on both sides when you can perfect it on one). If you have practised on the other side it does make sense to change hands when there is a bowl in your path more than a metre from the jack rather than take the chance of losing that bowl

    LINKS TO WEB ITEMS ON LEADING
  • practice routines from getagameofbowls
  • excellent article from Modbury Bowling Club
  • UTUBE video from Nev Rodda
  • interesting material from Blogspot



  • Australian Open Entries closing 3rd April


    When the Australian Open moved to the Gold Coast a couple of years ago it changed from an elite tournament mostly played by high performance players to a annual Festival of Lawn Bowling entered by bowlers of all levels.
    Read on for more information and on line entries


    GET A GAME OF BOWLS INFORMATION


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  • You can list your weekly social games as tournaments each week. This will give them better exposure in your state. When doing this you can show your prizemoney and sponsor if you have one. Once you have listed the first game you can list subsequent weeks with only 3 clicks


  • Editing and Partial Listing of Tournaments


  • You can now edit tournaments by going to the bottom of the entry page where it gives you a list of all tournaments previously entered by your club. You can change any of the details except the date.

  • If you know the date, the type of tournament and the expected prizemoney (eg Fours Men (2 day) 21st March 2017 $3000. you could partially list the game and put put something like Please reserve the dates, more details laterin the special conditions box

  • If you also know the sponsors name and the tournament deserves state or nation featuring (usually state $2000 or more, national $5000 or more your choice) you could do this at the incomplete stage and give your sponsor much more exposure in the state and national featured lists


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    Please make an effort to put one or more links to get a game on your web site

    Apart from a simple link like 'Lawn Bowls Tournaments in Australia' to the tournament listing, you can put in links to some of the other aspects of the site. The addition of 'Learning the Game' section should be of interest to all of your members, not only your coaches, and there is no better way to 'find a club' than to use the getagame link.

    You can also put a link in your page to the weekly social games at your club like this one for Chatswood NSW Having this link would save your webmaster the work of editing the club web page whenever you alter your social games, and in most cases supply more details about your weekly socials than is currently on your web page





    PREVIOUS EDITIONS OF GGGAZETTE

    If you were not on the mailing list for previous newsletters you can see them from these links

    December 2016
  • Would You Like to Play Bowls in China?
  • How Do You Get The Weight?
  • The Lawn Bowls Movies
  • Entering Pennant Results Accurately

  • August 2016
  • The Great Lawn Bowls Instructional Books
  • How Do You Get The Green
  • Five games like lawnbowls you could try this summer
  • Whch is the Most Important Shot in Lawn Bowls

  • July 2016
  • Law Change Discourages Oldest and Newest Pennant Players
  • The Australian Open - A Fabulous Event
  • The rise of the South Australian men
  • A snapshot of the sport of bowls in Australia
  • The History of Lawn Bowls and its equipment

  • April 2016
  • Tiger Tour : Tiger Bowls in Hong Kong and China Open in Shenzhen
  • On Line Bowls Magazines
  • The Role of Skipper: articles by Cameron Curtis and Tony Alcock
  • Tournament Software which does the draw and prints the cards
  • YouTube Coaching Directory Updated

  • February2016
  • Bushfire disaster hits two clubss
  • The Shooter Stance - great for many bowlers and a helpful for dumpers
  • An IMG report can show who has qualified for finals
  • A monthly television show on bowls

  • December 2015
  • Mainstream Media Under-rates Lawn Bowls
  • The New Order in Lawn Bowls
  • Six new Games for Team Practise
  • How to Put the Stickers on Your Bowls
  • The Mathematics Of Narrow Bowls

  • October 2015
  • 2015 Rule Change Altered Two Shots
  • Gambling Spreads to Lawn Bowls
  • Injuries from Lawn Bowls
  • Profitable Singles Tournaments
  • When did bowlers start running down the green?

  • August 2015
  • A Politician's View of Lawn Bowls
  • How do you use the width of the mat to get around a bowl
  • Lawn Bowls and YouTube - 30 coaching videos indexed

  • June 2015
  • What is a Skins Tournament
  • The health benefits of Bowls
  • Did Crackerjack Change the Bias of Australians About Lawn Bowls?