Get a Game of Bowls Gazette - a newsletter for bowling clubs

Final

Bowlers - improve your draw bowling by 20% for less than the cost of a cup of coffee.
Robert (Bob) Tuck, the originator of getagameofbowls, has recently written a book called Lawn Bowls: The Game & How To Play It Well. You can find out more about the book from this link or read part of the chapter on getting your weight here
You can buy the printed book for $24 posted or as an ebook for less than $5 on all platforms.

Find a Club Details for 1919 bowls clubs Google map & earth view Links to over 1000 web sites	Club Log On List Tournaments - free List social games - free Show sponsors- free
Playing & Coaching Solo Practice Routines Circuits for club practice Sourcing coaching aids	Running Tournaments have fun at weekly socials 20 different games better pennant draws

GGBLOG
Skins Tournaments - Six different games, all called skins

Using the Mat - to get around a short bowl

YouTube Coaching - 30 helpful videos, sorted by topic

2015 Rule Change - changes the way to play two shots

Singles Tournaments - bowlers like this profitable 1 day singles

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

Each time you receive this newsletter would you

Check that all your weekly social games are listed and make sure that the information shown is still accurate. Where social games change with the season it is best to edit them when they change

Make sure that any tournaments planned by your club have been listed.

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

Add 'Find a Club' to your Favourites

The 'find a club' section of get a game provides your quickest possible means of finding the phone number and location of any club in Australia - it is well worthwhile to have that link in your favorites

It also provides links to 995 clubs with web sites and 187 clubs which have a facebook page and no web site

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