Don’t worry, our club members are very friendly and will keep you right and help you when you start playing
Some of the important rules that one should know before playing the game are as follows.
Lawn bowling is played on a large, levelled, manicured and rectangular grassed area which is also known as a bowling green that is divided into rinks.
In a normal competition and team games, one of the two opponents will flip the coin to decide the winner of the mat for the first end.
At the beginning and end of each game it is good etiquette to wish your opponents a good game and shake their hand.
In English Bowling Federation games, at the start of the first end the mat is placed in the centre of the rink 2m from the ditch edge. All our League games except Friday are EBF.
In Bowls England games, at the start of the first end the mat is placed in the centre of the rink and anywhere between 2m and 25m from the ditch edge. Only Friday league is BE.
After the first end in EBF the mat can be placed between 2m and 4m from the ditch.
In Bowls England games a bowl or jack is out of bounds if they are fully out of bounds. In EBF games the jack or bowl are out of bounds is any part of the bowl or jack is outside the confines of the rink.
When the jack is place at full length, in Bowls England games the front of the jack is 2 meters from the ditch, in EBF games the back of the jack is 2m from the ditch.
The one who wins the toss wins the mat and rolls the jack towards the other end. After sometime, the jack will come to rest due to the friction and it will be aligned to the centre of the rink. After everything is set, the players take their bowl and roll it according to their turns.
The players roll the bowl towards the jack to build up the head.
A bowl normally curves in its path outside the rink but it has to come to rest within the rink boundary so that it will remain in play.
A bowl which falls into a ditch is treated as a dead ball and is removed from the game. But, in a Bowls England game, if the ball touches the jack and after touching it falls into a ditch then it will be treated as a live bowl and remain in play in the ditch.
The bowls that touch the jack are called touchers and they are marked with chalk. This bowl remains live and in play even if it falls into a ditch.
Similarly, if the jack or the kitty is knocked by a player into the ditch it is still treated as live and not be moved.
After each player has rolled all of their bowls, the distance between the jack and the bowls are measured. In this process, the minimum distance between the bowl and jack is awarded a point to the bowler or team. The team with the closest group of bowls are awarded a point for each bowl.
Each bowler has to roll two, three or four balls in a singles, doubles or triples match. Each player will roll two bowls in a fours match. Singles and Pairs use 2, 3 or 4 bowls, Triples use 2 or 3 bowls, Fours use 2 bowls each
After the game the team with the most shots is the winner, in a singles game it is usually the first person to reach 21 shots.
Other games are decided over a set number of ends.
A FULL SET OF RULES CAN BE ACCESSED ON THE BOWLS ENGLAND, BOWLS DURHAM AND ENGLISH BOWLING FEDERATION WEB SITES.