How competitive is bowls?

Anyone walking past a bowling club while games are being played would think that chaos seems to rule the day!

There can be up to 12 (or in big clubs, more than 12) separate games simultaneously on the go. Various players are to be heard calling out strange messages like “you lie”, “more grass!”, “second shot”, “measure for shot”, “too narrow” and so on and so forth. Oh well, like all games, bowls is no exception – it has its own jargon.

Most games of bowls are played by enthusiastic amateurs, usually over weekends and by fellow club members. These are called social games, which can be either singles, pairs, triples or fours; with certain interesting and fun variations coming into play from time to time. What is truly awesome about bowls is that it is always fairly straightforward to integrate a pure novice into the games being played at the time, so you could say that this game is one that you can learn as you play. Not many other games have that kind of advantage. Experienced bowlers are more than willing to show novices the ropes and will do all in their power to teach these newbies the game that they love so much. While bowls is a fairly easy game to play (once you have the basics under your belt of course) it is an extremely challenging game to master. I speak for myself here …

Furthermore, all clubs have their own internal competitions, like singles, mixed pairs, drawn pairs, handicapped games etc. to determine who are the champions within that club.

Social games are good fun and the backbone of all bowls clubs. Besides being great fun they are often also fiercely competitive, but like all good sportsmen and women, bowlers certainly enjoy playing against teams from other clubs – hence district, outside and local tournaments.

Randfontein Town Bowling Club’s hugely successful, recently held annual Ladies Day tournament is a prime example of a great local tournament. The club also hosts regular Fun Days which cater primarily for non-bowlers. The so-called outside tournaments are usually one or two day long affairs where bowlers from various clubs take part, usually for quite substantial prizes. Some of these tournaments however can last for considerably longer; the annual week-long Scottburgh and Margate tournaments a case in point. The district tournaments/ competitions take the form primarily of league games within a district (ours being the Sables Bowling Association – SBA) and what we refer to as Sables competitions.

Then there is player selection to represent the district and the province and, ultimately, there is the opportunity to represent South Africa as a Protea bowler. Yes indeed, as a Protea bowler you get the opportunity to travel to foreign countries (Covid restrictions in place of course) and play in various tournaments, the most prestigious being the Commonwealth Games.

But, as they say, that’s not all!

Within bowls there are all sorts of opportunities for anyone of any age to participate in competitive games. Perhaps the most keenly contested of these is the so-called Juniors – usually for players under 20 years of age. In SBA alone there is a very strong representation of youngsters starting at 14 years old! Randfontein’s 16-year-old Leila Snyman, for example, was selected in April this year to be part of SBA’s junior squad. Then there is the Seniors which is for players over 60. (And NO, there is not a Decrepit division!) But the good news is that everyone is catered for on the bowling green. From the kids, to the hale and hearty young adult population, to the aged, to the physically and even mentally handicapped, and to the partially sighted to the totally blind person. As we bowlers claim, and rightly so, bowls is 1sport4life. Indeed you can start playing bowls well before your teens and continue well into your nineties! How many other outdoor games can lay claim to that?

On a personal level, over the years I have played with and against young, old, ex-Springbok, current Protea, physically handicapped and blind bowlers and have always, without exception, come away the richer for having played against them.

And to close off, here is one final piece of bowling jargon. “Put the jack in the box.” Yeah right!

If you need any further information, or should you want to start or re-start playing bowls (our greens are open on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday afternoons from 1.30pm), please contact Randfontein Town Bowling Club’s president, Vera Pretorius on 082 779 5177 or secretary, Bobby McNeill on 082 926 4895.