BOWLING.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 308, 29 December 1924, Page 8

BOWLING.

THE CHRISTMAS TOURNAMENT. NOTES AND COMMENTS. (By TRUXDLER.) The Christmas tournament of 1924 will be remembered for the deluge or rain which made bowling impossible on the morning of Boxing Day, and conditions in the afternoon were anythm 0 but pleasant. It is questionable, however, whether it was necessary to indefinitely postpone the first round, for on a heavy green a match does not usually take' longer than two hours, and a number of them were finished in even less than that, so that probably the whole three rounds could have been completed on the first day, even with the late start. The few that were delayed with too many dead beads could have been finished on Saturday afternoon, for all the matches were over quite early. This point does not appear to have been sufficiently recognised by the executive, in contrast with tho experience on a fine day, when a keen green often makes a match last for three hours. Of course there is tbe matter of the damage that would be done to a green on a day like Friday, by keeping the programme going till late in the afternoon, but even then it is a mutter of opinion whether an extra match would do a soft green as much harm as was done by the infringement of the rule that requires a player to keep one loot, on the mat. It is fashionable to ask the leads and two's to step on the bank after delivering their bowls, while there is usually a squeal if anyone walks on a green with heeled boots, but all these adverse influences do only a mere fraction of the damage to a soft green that was done on Friday and Saturday by delivering bowls with both feet off the mat. Smashing up the Nice Turf. It is usually contended that this rs done unconsciously, and probably it often is, hut in une section in this tournament there were players who did it deliberately. Some of tliem actually stepped on the mat, examined it carefully, and then went forward about six to nine inches over the front, thus delivering their bowls with their toes digging into the bare ground. When they drove it was dreadful, the grass torn right off. An old proverb used to say: "No grass grows where the Turk's horse treads.'' Not having the intimate acquaintance witii the Near Eastern question Mr. Alan McElwain displays in his bowling recitals, it is impossible for one to say whether this is true or not, but it would be quite safe to say, in regard to last week: "No grass grows where Mr. Blank drives." When some of the grcenkeepera strolled over their greens on Sunday morning, it is to be hoped they would put the blame for the damage where it rightly belongs, not on the executive for allowing play on a wet green, but on their failure to protect them by "burning" every bowl that was delivered without one foot on the mat. The umpires are not to blame, for they have no instructions to carry out the rules. Their time is fully taken up with recording the results of the matches, which iv not really their job, and in putting the tape on close measures, although the laws of the game say they are not to do so. Vide Rule VIII, 7. It really does appear as if it was about time that an umpire's duties were properly delined. Arguments on the Rules. This tournament provided the usual set of arguments on the rules. First there was the jack that hit the bank, outside the boundary of the rink and then fell into the ditch, inside tho boundary. There was quite a lot of doubt about it until it was settled by the rule that makes it "alive," "notwithstanding that during its course it went beyond the side limits of the rink." Then it turned out that in falling into the ditch it only came back into the rink because it hit a dead bowl in the ditch. "That alters the case," was the general opinion. But it did not alter it, because another rule provides that the jack "shall remain where it comes to rest," when it comes into contact with a dead bowl in the ditch, and "the dead bowl should then be removed to the bank." Then there was the bowl that was declared "dead" because it hit the mat that was in tho ditch, leaning against the bank. But it was still "alive," for the rule only makes it dead if it strikes this neutral object "either ou the green or above the level of the bank," a common sense, limitation of the burning of the bowl that will be appreciated on reflection as to the objects of ilie rule. By the way, this rule seems to be defective. There seems to be no reason why these conditions applying to "a jack or bowl driven .by a bowl in play" should not equally apply to a bowl in its original course. But the chief lack in the rules is a clear indication as to whose job it is to see that they are observed. The tournament conditions only instruct the umpires to decide disputes, giving them no povver of initiative except in 111. 2, 111. 7, and XXIV., and that right they never exercise. Those rules relate to one foot on the mat, following a bowl, and challenging "pokers." Some day it may be decided to instruct the umpires that those rules are a duty, and not only a right, while at some still more distant date it may be decided to instruct the umpires to enforce all the rules, and not merely Borne of them. When that is done, it will be to the advantage of the game, for "the law is only a terror to evildoers," and not to good sports, while there will be no necessity for greenkeepers to protect their greens, like.some of them did last week, by leaving them woolly, when they know that umpires are instructed to jump on those who are doing their best to rip the greens to pieces.