BOWLING.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 11 October 1924, Page 12

BOWLING.

It Will be/recollected that during the South Taranaki tournament a difference of opinion arose as -to when a heaff commenced. The .rinks were playing !to time. In one game the jack had been: thrown, 'but, striking a howl that had/been carelessly left on the green, went into the next rink (or out of bomids); before it could: be thrown again the bell rang, and play ceased. The/imatter was referred to the tournament committee, a majority of whom rules that the jack, having struck an obstruction, was dead, and the bell ringing before it could be thrown agate, the game ended. The matter referred to the Centre ter a ruling, and the following reply ihas been received: “A head is started immediately the jack is thrown, andbthe head must be played, even though the. jack i 6 thrown into the ditch or over the side line in the first instance and the time-limit hell rings before it is rethrown. ’ ’ The greens in the southern division were; opened on Wednesday, and play in earnest commenced from that date. The ; New Plymouth greens (northern division) open to-dav, and Opunake on the 15th. Park Club intend© holding a progressive naira tournament on Labour Day,; providing there are 20 or more entries. A similar competition held on January 1 will lie 'recollected; with pleasure by those who took part, and so that there will be no disappointments this time, it behoves player© to get their names on the notice hoard without delay. There should he an endeavour to get shield matches off. this year with move promptitude than has been the case in the .past, so that inter-club matches can he played'. There is a strong feeling that shield matches do not conduce to the best interests of bowling, but ifc is argued on the other hand that such competitions are the life and eoul of the game. "Who is right?

BOWL TESTING. At the invitation of the president of the Dunedin Bowling Centre (Mr W. Connor), Mr W. A. Scott, official bowl tester for the Dominion, gave an address on bowl testing, in which he pointed out the advantages of testing on the green as compared with the table test. . As Mr Scott’s remarks are of particular interest to bowlers tthev are given in full. Mr Scott says I “Although the table test is the only one which the manufacturers of bowls could use throughout the year in England, yet it has so many limitations that it cannot be as efficient as the green test adopted by the New Zealand Bowling Association in 1909. In comparing the two methods, one •might note that on the table the bias of the bowl is determined by running it almost entirely on the small ivory side of its crown, and not all of this side is used simultaneously because of the small surface the bowl presents to the table. The shape of the crown on the large ivory side is scarcely brought into requisition to determine the bias of the bowl. As a matter of fact, a deficiency on the large ivory side slightly increases the bias if the table is used, but decreases it if the green is used—rather a disconcerting fact to advocates of the table test. Now, suppose either the manufacturer unintentionally, or the enterprising howler intentionally, makes a howl not correct on the side of the crown which the table test takes little covenant of —the answer is obvious. He has a bowl which nasses the table test, but is deficient'in draw when played on the green. These are circumstances which repeatedly crop up, as the testers’ records will show. I have known a tabletested set of howls vary six feet in draw. One buys a set of bowls (and .pays a great price for them, too, nowadays), and quite, possibly finds that each bowl of the set has a different drawing value. Now, on the green test the bias is ascertained by using the whole of both .sides of its running crown instead of a part of it only. “You will have great difficulty' if you attempt to apply table data to the green. Usually' testing tables vary from a run of 10ft up to 30ft or more, covered with different sorts of materials. Taking an average between these two lengths, you get a table which gives a 20ft run, which is somewhat less than a quarter of the length of a standard green with many times less than the stored energy in the bowl which takes less stored energy to travel the 20ft on the table than it does 20ft on the green. Now, it is plain to be seen you have reduced your green a quarter and called it a table, you have reduced your impetus even much more than quarter because of the smooth running surface of the table, but. you have not reduced the bowl. Now," out of three factors you have .reduced two of them in a lop-sided sort of a way, hut allowed the third to reman ; thus you have absolutely lost the relations between the three different factors. "With the green test a standard green is used, with its full energy stored in the howl itself. Thus the three factors are used in their natural way. This lessened impetus is another menace to table testing, as different shaped howls have different drawing proportions in their dying moment©. When a howl starts to run on its 20tt journey, it is not running on the same crown that it would if an 84ft journey were given it. The less impetus the bowl has stored in it, the nearer its running crown get© to the small ivory side. Hence, at the start of this 20ft journey, a bowl has a certain definite inclination of its axis toward the small ivory, andbowls of different crowns vary in their tendency, and unless the table operator finds the . correct tendency nature must find it for him, and if he gives it a very little too much inclination, nature accepts it and itsnominal draw is increased, but if _ he give it a lot. too much inclination, nature resents the interference,-and it assumes the attitude of what howlers call ‘eyes out,’ and goes straight either "the whole or a part of its course. If it is put down on its axis slightly inclined towards the; large ivory, nature also will accept this, and its natural draw is decreased slightly. (This is what bowlers call putting it down on its back), but if you deliver it with its axis still more inclined towards the large ivory, it also goes ‘eyes out,’ and loses much or all of its draw until nature asserts itself again, hut in the meantime you are not discovering the draw of the howl. “With the present green test, every bowl is delivered on its proper axis, and, if the operator does not let it away on a perfect axis, the machine rectifies it before it is delivered on the green regardless of the shape of the bowl. Tracking is the great enemy of bowl testing. Your skip often says, ‘lt will play better presently.’ It is his way of saying they will soon start to track. Now, both table and green will do this, and experiments carried out lead me to say the table is the worse of the two systems, but with the green test we get over the difficulty by giving every bowl a new course, thus making it declare its own bias and not be influenced by the track of a previous bowl. “In 1909 "a committee appointed bv the New Zealand Bowling Association went fully into the matter of bowl testing, and, after exhaustive experiments, adopted the following apparatus to carry out the work: A delivery rail was provided made of a piece of T steel 2jin x 5-16 in. with its surface planed with a shallow groove 13-16 wide cut on the ton of the T. and about 2ft of the end of the rail is bent, and the web cut away so as to ensure a perfect delivery for the bowl,. The rail so rests' on a stand that it can he moved in any direction without altering its relative position with the .stand. This is done so that no two bowls need be delivered in the same track, hut that eafch howl will be compelled to declare its own draw on a fresh piece of green. At the heel of the rail is placed a graduated quadra fit to guide the operator as to the distance the rail is over, which denotes the divergency at the 84ft end. The rail is 17ft long, and is graduated every 6in, and when at. the 15ft mark the standard howl travels 84ft and diverges 4ft llin. The association called this a normal condition, and thus adopted a standard distance, ,84ft (maximum and minimum head added together and divided by two), standard. green (one which would throw the standard bowl 84ft at the 15ft mark on the rail), and a standard howl ■ (which will draw 4ft llin in 84ft when thrown from the 15ft mark). Thus we have the three factors which give data for testing all shapes of howls under vary ins conditions of the green, which the table utterly fails to do. All bowls, regardless o.f their attributes, must draw 4ft llin in 84ft on a standard greqn. Now it will be obvious that a low-crown bow] which draws to the standard at the 15ft mark on a standard green will fall a little short of the, standard when it takes 17ft of the rail to throw 84ft. Likewise a high-crown howl which draws to the standard at the 15ft mark on a standard green will run a little over the standard- when it takes 17ft of the rail to throw 84ft. “Now, when the green is keener, and it takes only 13ft to throw 84ft, then the Igw-crown .bowl overruns the standard, and the high-orown falls a little short. This is why bowlers often

say, ‘Mv bowls do not draw much on a damp, heavy green, hut on a keen green they are unplayable.’ They are playing a low-crown bowl. This is the immutable law in regard to the action of bowls of varying crowns, and if you disregard it you get into a hopeless muddle. Using only the last few yards of its course on a table merely adds to your trouble. All the manoeuvring in the world will not get rid of these facts. “ ‘Billiard tables for billiards and bowling greens for bowls’ is a good and true slogan, and the mixing of these two will put us back into the muddle we were in 15 years ago, when 624 per cent of the bowls then tested were under the adopted standard and had to be widened. If the data laid down by the old association in 1909 had been carried out, all bowl-testing matters would be at rest. It is mv opinion that the officers appointed did not sufficiently grasp the data, and, unfortunately, green tests, table tests, and standard bowls, etc., got astray,, and in January last the council had a table and green test carried out. The-fol-lowing data is taken from the report. I might say in the case of the table the figures are given on a run of approximately 20ft and a divergency of 34in, the shortest bowl being 2-Jin less at the finish, which, if converted to the green - under standard conditions, would mean, say, 4Jin. The green figures are given under standard conditions: Table. Green. Christchurch To standard 9in slack Dunedin 2jin slack sin slack Wellington To standard! To standard Taranaki To standard To standard Auckland 2Jin slack 12in slack Napier To standard Ift 6in over Timaru 2in slack Ift 6in slack Wanganui To standard 2ft over “In the case of the Napier howl, this is a sister to the Wellington howl, and when.delivered by me both drew exactly alike, and the alteration in draw is due to injury to its crown. The Dunedin bowl has been used 16 years on what is supposed to be the same conditions. The Timaru howls bear the Wellington stamp, and the Wanganui the Auckland stamp, and I find a divergency of 3ft 6in between the two, but the Wellington test only finds a few inches. Six persons witnessed the carrying out of the green test, one of whom is a member of the council and one of the centre. On February 11, 1923, I wrote to the council as follows: ‘As there is a number of centres carrying out the testing of bowls, it would be interesting to know whether the different officials are carrying out the original intentions of the association. I would suggest that all standard bowls be brought together once every year, and, if necessary, adjusted again; or what would be better still, all testing carried out on the green by one official.’ “Since writing the above, I am more fully convinced that one official is the proper course, and that he be responsible for the carrying out of the work in the Dominion. “My knowledge of bowl testing, extending over a period of 23 years, convinces me that the green is the proper place to approve of the bias of a bowl. It may be said that at times conditions interfere with the carrying out of the work. This leaves, at any rate, most days when perfect work can be done on the green, while, on the table, at no time can it be satisfactorily carried out.”