Lawn Bowling

If you have never heard of lawn bowling, think of this article as your lawn bowling tutorial. Essentially, the game is similar in premise to bocce ball, though it is also close to the sport of indoor bowling. As a sport, lawn bowling is quite popular in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. There are also a lot of lawn bowlers in the United States. There are leagues (such as the Glebe Manor lawn bowling club in Toronto, Canada) and tournaments in all of these countries; there are many websites dedicated to lawn bowling news. The sport is not only fun, it is taken very seriously by professional players.

A lawn bowling set consist of eight lawn bowling balls called bowls. The bowls for lawn bowling are designed to trace a curved path when rolled. The balls are rolled or bowled toward a small white ball called a jack. The closer your bowl gets to the jack, the more likely it is for your team to score. The game is played with two teams that can have up to four players each. After everyone has bowled, the team whose bowl is closest to the jack gets one point. If they have other bowls that are closer than their opponent's bowls, they get an additional point for each bowl.

Lawn bowling is fairly inexpensive to set up because there really isn’t any other lawn bowling equipment to purchase other than the bowls and jack. The professionals have lawn bowling shoes and lawn bowling clothing that is similar to sports uniforms. However, none of this is necessary for a simple backyard tournament. The game is played on a bowling green or rink that traditionally has eight lanes that are each about 14 feet wide. However, for the purpose of your backyard, you can probably have only one or two lanes.

If you do want to set up an entire lawn bowling green or rink in your backyard, that's a terrific idea. Make sure that you have the space to put in all eight lanes and that you have the ability to mark the lanes appropriately. Many professional lawn bowlers have lawn bowling rinks in their backyards for practice, so it is not unheard of to have a complete rink built in your own backyard. But if you are just a weekend sports enthusiast, you may want to stick with a portable set for now.