LAWN BOWLS

Source: Outdoor Sports and Games
Category: ONE HUNDRED OUTDOOR GAMES



This is a very old game and of great historic importance. The famous
Bowling Green in New York City was named from a small park where the
game was played by New Yorkers before the Revolution. The game is
played with wooden balls five inches in diameter and painted in
various gay colours. Usually lignum vitae is the material used. They
are not perfectly round but either slightly flattened at the poles
into an "oblate spheroid" or made into an oval something like a modern
football. Each player uses two balls, which are numbered. A white
ball, called a "jack ball," is then thrown or placed at the end of the
bowling green or lawn and the players in turn deliver their balls or
"bowl" toward the jack. The whole game consists in placing your ball
as near to the jack as possible and of knocking away the balls of your
opponents. It is also possible to strike the jack and to drive it
nearer to where the balls of your side are lying. When all the players
have bowled, the two balls nearest the jack each count a point for the
side owning it. The game if played by sides is somewhat different from
a two-handed contest. The main point first is to deliver the ball as
near to the jack as possible and then to form a barrier or "guard"
behind it with succeeding balls to block those of your adversaries.
Sometimes the Jack is placed in the middle of the green and the teams
face each other and bowl from opposite ends. A green is about seventy
feet square with closely cropped grass. Four players form a "rink" and
are named "leader," "second," "third," and "skip" or captain. The
position from which the balls are delivered is called the "footer." It
is usually a piece of cloth or canvas three feet square.


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