BOWLING.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 90, 18 April 1927, Page 12

BOWLING.

THE EASTER TOURNAMENT. i AN ENJOYABLE FUNCTION. OLD PLAYERS DOING WELL. (By TRUNDLER.) . Auckland has often experienced delightful weather at Easter, but even the proverbial oldest inhabitant would iiave to go back a long way to recall finer conditions than have prevailed over the week-end. Bowlers have been in their element, the pleasant turn being all the more appreciated after the broken -weather recently. Outside the greater enjoyment therefrom, the most noticeable effect on the bowling has been to make the greens much keener, and many think they were keener than in the Dominion tournament, three months ago. One laughable result occurred on the Carlton green on Saturday morning. Starting before nine o'clock, the first lead to get going evidently thought he had to make allowance for any dew that might be left on the grass, so he put on a bit of. pace. His bowl caught the jack, and carried it almost into the corner of the rink, his toucher rolling into the ditch. His opponent had to be up, if he was to beat a toucher only two feet away, but 'he also underestimated the pace of Carlton's glassy surface, for he picked up the jack and carried it right outside the boundary, dead. Many a dead-head was played later on, there being three very successful drivers in this section, Torrance, Randell and Garry, and they used their drive for all it was worth, but this is the first time the writer lias seen a dead-head made with the second bowl in a tournament. In Sj'dney a lead carried the jack into the ditch, with 'his first bowi on the 21st head in a recent tournament, with peculiar results. There was a tie on the 20th, and as his toucher was lying alongside the jack he had. won the match, for it was useless for any of the remaining fifteen bowls to be played. The affair seems to have created wide interest, and there is some talk of getting the rule altered, to provide for the jack being'always lifted out of the ditch, and put on the edge, to be played to, and not merely as an indication" of ■where it origjnally lay. Already their rules provide for putting a spare jack «n the edge, to indicate the position, but this has also got them into trouble, for. in another tournament a bowl stopped on this spare jack, and then there was no rule to say whether it was the shot, or whether it was dead, after touching a neutral object. Our own rule is vague enough, but it has never landed us into such a peculiar position as that. The two glaring faults in ours are that the jack or bowl is only dead if its hits this foreign object '•either on the green or above the level of the bank," with no provision for what happens if it is in any other position, such as leaning against the bank, and the Dominion Council also refuse to accept the suggestion that this "burning" of a bowl should also apply to a bowl in its original course. See rule 47.

The Time Limit. The keen greens were also responsible for another incident on Saturday. As was pointed out last week, the sun sets twenty minutes earlier than it did at Easter last year, and it was made still more difficult to finislh the third round in daylight, owing to the matches always taking longer on a keen green. The tournament committee, therefore, very wisely guarded against any more playing in the dark Inputting on a time limit of two and three-quarters hours. On one green the umpire declined to accept the unofficial notification through the Press, apparently taking up the attitude that as there was no time-limit in the programme ihe must abide by No. 17 in the conditions, and put on the three-hour time limit in the D.B.A. model set of rules. As it happened, the only match extended to the three hours did not change in the remaining two heads, but an awkward position would have arisen if the other side had won, through the incorrect extension to two more heads. The only actual harm resulting was to hold up the programme, whereas every minute is of value when it turns so cold after 5 oclock.

A notification in the programme that alterations will be conveyed through the Press would prevent a recurrence of this incident. This evening still quicker notification will be required, in regard to whether the sixes will qualify for intersection play. All who get six wins would do well to ring up No. 394, the official medium for communicating all urgent matters. Will the Sizes Qualify? This is always a burning question, and its bare possibility causes hope to spring eternal in the human breast. JSeveral of the returns were so incomplete and otherwise incorrect when the final information was received on Saturday evening that it is impossible to say at time of writing whether six wins will qualify. A critical examination of the erratic returns to hand, however suggests that six wins will not qualify' and it is even possible that the seven* will not get in, for in each section it *s quite likely that there will be a team with eight wins. Another thino- that seems possible, judging by the first two dayg, is that there will be no "dark 'horses" in the intersection plav this year. Competitors were relieved to find that the rule about bowls requiring the 192") or subsequent stamp has not yet come into effect. It is to be brought in after April 30.