BOWLING.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19996, 13 January 1927, Page 4

BOWLING.

Bt Jack. From a bowler’e point of view the weather has been ideal during the past few days, and the principal city greens are freely patronised in the afternoons, and in the evenings the whole of the greens present a very animated scene. Though the centre’s official programme has not yet been resumed, the various clubs are making an effort to get the club ties advanced as fast as possible. Local bowlers will watch with interest the success or otherwise of the Dunedin contingent at present in Auckland com l peting in the Dominion championships. Up to the present the play has been confined to the singles championship, and at the time of writing several Dunedin players are still in the running. Two ex-champions—J. C. Rigby and J. Best- - were evidently unable to reproduce the form which they displayed when they secured the coveted honour, as they were eliminated in the first day’s play. At the conclusion of the Singles Championship in the Southland Centre’s New rear tournament' a member of the centre presented £1 1 each to J. Tonkin (NorthEast Valley) and W. Foster (Caledonian), whose exposition of singles play was con sidered to be the best seen at the tournament. This gracious action on the pan of the Southland official was greatly appreciated by the Dunedin players. Elderly Bowlers’ Day will this vear bo held on February 12. Although Mr Mercer has resigned from the secretaryship of th» Dunedin Club he will again be at the helm, and that is sufficient guarantee that the gathering will be a success. Mr Mercer is an out-and-out enthusiast in catering for the elderly bwlers, and there is probably no one else in the Dominion who could make such a pronounced success of a gathering of this nature. In recent rears about 120 pjlayors, averaging 75 years of j age, have taken part. If thought advisable special rinks will be formed of players over the age of 80 years. An unusual incident occurred in the Christmas bowling tourney at Auckland. It was at St. Heller’s green, with the game at a critical stage, the Auckland team_ leading Remuera by one point on I the nineteenth head. Auckland’s lead drew a toucher, and Remuera’s No. 2 “rested” it. As “kitty” lay with the two rival bowls, each only inches away, seeking her favour, it appeared to the contestants, who craned their necks for the usual close examination, that Auckland would, on the official measure, gain the verdict. But, as they stooped over. Auckland’s No. 3 dropped his pipe. It fell on the Remuera bowl and deflected it the merest fraction, giving Remuera the shot. In future this player is to be asked to leave his pipe at home when he attends a bowling tournament, so that momentous issues may not be diverted by trivial mischances. There hangs on the wall of the elubroem of the Burwood Bowling Club a picture of Mr J. W. E. Baillie, playing a game of bowls at Sherwood Forest, near Parramatta, in 1880. Mr Baillie. formerly a schools’ inspector, in the service of the Education Department, celebrated his eighty-fifth _ birthday on Christmas Day. His enthusiasm for the game remains as keen as it was when that old picture ■was taken, and to-day he is accounted among the best beloved habitues of Burwood green. There is an aspect in bowls that never fails to interest (writes “Boomerang” _in the Sydney Referee). It is the relative merits of the four-bowl player and the rink player, as separate units. A leading player said the other day: “Name any first-class skip, from anywhere you please, and I’ll guarantee that in his club he is either scratch, or well behind, in the four-bowl competitions.” It is held by a section that a good four-bowl exponent is not necessarily a good rink player. But, apart from some isolated cases, where a good four-bowler is only a very good draw player, with no variety, where is the logic of such a conclusion? Louis Waxman correctly described the four-bowl game as the champagne of bowls, and believe me, a player who can’t succeed at single-handed play is sailing under false colours when he essays to take charge of a rink. I noticed in a recently- \ selected pennant team a skip who, I understand, is on scratch in the singles competitions, but who does not contest the championship, or take part in the handicaps. As a four-bowl player he would be entitled to at least 6 on, where the rear marker owes 6 points. The natural conclusion is then, what extraordinary virtue is there in any man who has to take a dozen points from another in a single competition? In the four-bowl game a man has to know every shot, and the way to play it, to be a conspicuous success. In the rink game (I am speaking of skippers) a man has to know all these shots, and the way to play them also. A poor tour-bowler never has been, and never will be, a passable skipper. A man who was not a star at the rink game never won a big or State singles in the history of bowls in this country—and never will. It is all so much camouflage. Men who won’t toe the mark at single-handed bowls, and show of what stuff they are made, should never be given a rink. It is the fear of defeat that determines many a man, as he knows full well that the grip on his rink play would soon slip if he goes down to some of the under-graders. Much is made of temperament in classing' players. It is the back door for interlopers, and those who succeed in rink play by virtue of the fact that the other three players “carry” theln. -A man who kneels on the mat, and can’t do certain strong shots, has to be “carried” when such problems present themselves. Nobody can deny that. Unfortunately every club has its quota of players who look for a way out by blaming the skip for a loss. If it isn’t his temperament it’s something else, and they will go to no end of trouble to impress the selector who lends his ear of the fact that the skip was the fly in the ointment, and not themselves. No fewer than 360 players will take part in the Victorian State pairs competition, which will begin on New Years Day and finish on January 4. This event is a true pairs game, the four bowl pairs as practised in New South (and some other parts) being nothing more nor less than a game of skittles. Pairs consist of a leader and a skip, as played in the southern State, and the speptacle ot driving leaders is entirely eliminated. The two-bowl game has everything to re-, commend it, but there is not a redeeming l * feature about the four-bowl pairs game. In the latter the worst bowls, those that w del be classed as “rubbish” in the twObowl game, count much oftener than shots well drawn in the early stages for the reason that a pair can' afford to waste a couple of bowls each when they are outdrawn, and really good leading is nullified. I have played pairs in New South Wales and pairs in Victoria, and_ have no hesitation in saying that there is no comparison in the two games. A couple of seasons ago J. L. Anderson was showing exceptional form leading, in the State pairs, but in the fifth round we met two drivers who were also good drawers. Result, exit. Nothing is prettier and more in keep- | ing with a pairs game than to see two good lead rs battling with the always present feeling that their bowls are going to be in the count, and not in some remote corner of the green when the measuring takes place. Reckless driving, and driving by leaders who are foreign to the art, is cut out in the two-bowl game, and big pots are impossible. And there is another aspect, and a most important one. In the pairs game, as practised in Victoria, the true- leader times into the game. In the four-bowl pairs game, the true leader is not much good unless he can also mix it, and whan a lea’der finds he can “mix it” ho no longer wants to be a leader. The reckless fourbowl pairs game unfits him for his position, and discontent soon takes possession. Then also, when two skips get playing fourbowl pairs, one won’t be subordinate to the other, but drives when he likes, and restrains his partner when the fit gets him. In the language of young Australia, the pairs game, as played in Now South Wales, is “not a game at all; not a game’s bootlace.”