BOWLING.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 20 December 1924, Page 9

BOWLING.

The weather conditions so far have been anything but favourable for local outdoor sports, and bonders amongst others have been sadly disappointed at various fixtures having to be postponed owing to downpours on Wednesdays and Saturdays especially. A number of banner fixtures have met this fate, and it will unfortunately prolong the contests, a 6 the postponements will have to be played later on. I have read of instances of a bird having been killed by a golf ball, 1 but never of one being six disposed of by a bowl on a bowling green until Friday evening last, when a game was. in progress on the Sydenham green. A bowl had just been delivered, when a cock sparrow settled on the green a dozen yards in front of the mat; it appeared to look round and get a sight of the bowl coming towards it, made one .or two hops as if. in defiance, but it either misjudged the pace or bias of the ball, which ran clean over and killed it.

THE JOB OF GREEN UMPIRE

The job of .umpiring on a green is not one much sort after. As , a matter of fact, there are many bewlers who would rather walk ten miles on soft sand than take charge of a green on the understanding that they must maintain a cat-like watch on ,all bowlers to see that one foot is on the mat when the ball is delivered; to gee that he is wearing the correct club colours; that his bowls are stamped, ett. Only a few men have com© forward in Wellington to undertake such duties, • and these deserve a" good deal of creditfor the judicious authority they have exerted; still, very few envy them their job, says a. writer in the Dominion. At the last Centre meeting delegate after delegate arose to state that he had been unable to get any volunteers to umpire oh the greens during the Dominion tournament in January. Small wonder this. There has been so much, discussion- about the. strict observance of pernicketty rules that the average bowler—even if he. had the leisure and inclination —has been inclined to shy clear of such an unpopular job. In Christchurch last January no one knew -of the existence of an umpire on the green after the preliminary examination of the bowls, but there is the. promise of a move strict supervision of all play here forshadowed in the discussions at local centre ingsROTOR.UA TOURNAMENT. Among the rinks which will be competing in the first Rotorua tournament will be a team from New South Wales. The Rotorua Club seems to have got over the most of it's, difficulties, for instead of taking entries j for the first tournament holus bolus, lit has closed down as soon as the re'quisite number lias been received iThis necessitates players shut out having to enter for the second tournament, but there is no reason why the second tournament should not be as important as the first, says “Number Two,” in the Wellington Post. One trouble which those in control at Rotorua have still to get over is that of having so many byes during the course of the tournament, caused by the limitation of the playing area to 55 rinks. This number in itself is a difficult one to arrange, as there must necessarily be one team standing out of every game. It is suggested that this could -be overcome by reducing j the entries from 55 to 50. "This would ‘allow of the matches being got off in five sections of ten rinks each, thus obviating a bye. The second tournament would thus become more popular b, causing the overflow from the first to oe larger than .what it is at present. The Rotorua Club has prevented a repetition of what happened last year when the runners-up belonged to three different clubs. Several Wellington teams have been disappointed this year in not getting into the first tournament, but it is hoped that they will enter for the second.