Overseas Bowling.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 272, 16 November 1935, Page 5 (Supplement)

Overseas Bowling.

AUSTRALIANS EXPECTED. Practical Results From Their Tour — Preparing for Empire Games—Question of Expenses. (By TRUNDLER.) The pending visit of a party of bowlers from New South Wales, who are planning to arrive in Auckland on Xew Year's Day, is of much more importance than usual, or can be made of more use, if tlie opportunity is taken to go a little beyond the pleasant platitudes at the actual functions arranged in their honour, "swapping yarns" over a cup of tea, as they call it in Sydney. The principal things of practical value to both sides which can be gained by their visit are the development of their ideas a.? to liow New Zealand can most effectively help them in the bowls section of the Empire Games, to be held in their great city two years hence, incidentally introducing their recent innovation in replacing their couch-grass greens with New Zealand "brown top," and secondly, the possibility of friendly conferences with their officials regarding the adoption of a uniform code of rules. Some of their "recognised authorities" contend that Australia and New Zealand are already committed to the rules of the International Bowling Board, overlooking the obvious fact that the 1.8.8. have never asked us to observe their rules, have never complained because we follow our own, and on the contrary have specifically resolved that the Dominions have freedom to use their own rules if the board's rules "were not consistent with those adopted ill their own countries." However, it would seem desirable to have world-wide uniformity, and .the present is a very suitable time to consult Australia. Their rules are now in Hie melting pot, and have been since January of last year, when Mr. E. C. Cordner, secretary of their council, published a complete redraft of their rules, from the pen of Mr. Josh Hammill, of Forth, who has since been elected president of the council. Furthermore, it was exactly a year ago on Thursday of this week that another revision was presented to the council, from a committee set up in Adelaide the previous March, together with a minority report from Mr. Cordner himself. The New Zealand Council adopted the Auckland remit to ask Australia for these drafts, and Mr. Cordner has similarly askecl for our latest rules, so the stage now seems set for carrying out next January his suggestion in "Bowls" of January 18 that "the differences between the New Zealand and Australian laws and those of the board could be adjusted by negotiation." N.S.W. President Coming.

As for the Empire Games in Sydney, it is very fortunate that the New South Wales president, Mr. T. W. Heath, proposes to come here himself next January, for he is sure to bring tentative details of the bowls section. On one point he is morally certain to bring a definite pronouncement against the recommendation of the Wellington Centre, that the council should strike a levy to send a selected team. This has been doue only once, according to all the available information, England paying the expenses of the seven who competed in Canada five years ago, and there was such a lot of criticism when they won all threo events that it is not likely to bo repeated. It would simply be a premium on wealth, the wealthiest country winning every time, the very thing that is not recognised in bowls. The community docs not regard bowls like other sports: there is no gate money, no outside subscriptions, no municipal subsidies, and no schoolboys in the game. It is essentially a game for men, and chiefly for elderly men, the average age being higher now than ever it was, and my forecast is that neither New Zealand nor Australia would tolerate paying the expenses of the bowlers, although this is perfectly legitimate in the ease of youths competing in running, jumping, rowing, swimming and all the other sports that come within the province of those who are on the threshold of life, and simply could not afford to go unless j their expenses were paid by other people. Bowlers are too independent to be included in that category.

The actual competition takes seven players only; each rink, pair or single to play those of all the other countries, for hitherto there has boon no provision whereby they could play in .relays, although there seems to be nothing in the rules to prevent this, and to make the players conform to "the law of the Medes "and Persians, • which altereth not." So far as Australia is concerned, with its 20.350 bowlers, and New Zealand, with its 16,047, it is not at all a cheerful prospect to limit the competitors in each case to seven men, and it will not be at all surprising if the Australian committee propose to reserve the right to play a fresli set of men each day. This would save their selectors ft lot of needless trouble, and consequent criticism, and would facilitate the New Zealand entry, for the seven places are bound to be over-subscribed, even without the expenses paid, seeing that there is every prospect of the usual official Australian carnival to follow the Empire Games. This will bo open to an unlimited number from New Zealand, to play in the rinks and pairs in sections, and in the singles on the knock-out, and naturally far more would enter if there was a chance of a few rounds in the Empire Games also. This, in turn, brings up the matter of whether our players will have to endure the Sydney greens grassed with couch, or whether by that time a sufficient number will be torn up and replaced with brown top, for this would make the tour much more enjoyable to all who have been accustomed to playing on the finer grasses. It is rather 6trange that in Sydney, of all places, the speakers and newspapers refer to "brown top" and "creeping bent" as if they were interchangeable terms to denote one and the same grass, for as long ago as 1933 the bulletin of the New South Wales Golf Council's green research committee gave the warning about the former, "commonly and erroneously known in Sydney as creeping bent." Tlie Department 'of Agriculture in New Zealand recognises the two grasses as "two distinct types of Agrostis," the botanical name "of the former being Agrostis tenuis, while creeping bent rejoices in the name of Agrostis 6tolonifera, and is handicapped by a list of inferior characteristics, including more liability to disease than either Agrostis tenuis or couch, according to the golf bulletin. However, these features are probably known better to experts than to the writer, and at present the main point that concerns the intending competitors in the Empire Games aiul the subsequent carnival in Sydney, is whether the success of the 6ix clubs who have adopted brown top will bo sufficiently pronounced during the coining summer to mako this grass come into more general j use.