BOWLING

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 23 January 1926, Page 10

BOWLING

HAWEEA AT DUNEDIN. One rink from tho Hawera Bowling Club entered for the N.Z. tournamcM at Dunedin, and their record in such strong company must be considered quite good. The rink comprised Messrs. T. E. Corkill (skip), S. Adamson. Shaw, S. Maslin. On the first clay they could not get going, and were beaten though in no case by a large margin. They inev struck form, and after a close finish in the third match, went on to win a succession of contests and finished the section play with a record of five wins, three losses. It was quite good, but not sufficient to get them into the post-section play. They have, besides taking part in t l m bowling, enjoyed tlie Exhibition, and have thus “killed two birds with one stone." There is no doubt the tournaments do a. vast deal of good to the sport and enable a valuable interchange of ideas, besides making men from all parts of the Dominion learn something of towns and districts hitherto unknown. Hawera have not a pair entered, but Maslin is playing with McDonald, of Mahaia, and did fairly well. They showed great form in some of thenmatches.

NEW PLYMOUTH TOURNEY.

The tournament at Neiv Plymouth will open on Tuesday, and entries show that it is going to be a great success. Four rinks will go from the Hawera Club and one from Park Club. The former will be: (.1) T. Tait, Dillon, R. Hicks, Robb (s.); (2) Winks, Herbert, M. Squire, Foy (s.); (o) Wills, Shaw, Adamson, Corkill (s.); (4) T. C. Hobbs, Arthur,* Champion, Westaway (s.). A Hawera rink won the championship twice—in 1917 and in 192 J. The members were: S. Adamson, W. Robertson, A. Hodge, J. Foy (s.), and the same, except that M. Rudkin displaced Adamson, in the other year. Hodge has been a competitor every time for fourteen years, but this year will not be going.

WHAT IS A GOOD GREEN? COMMENT ON DUNEDIN GREENS. What is a “good" green? Passing, as a sine qua non, everything but the quality of pace, that question is one of the most difficult propounded to bowlers (says a southern critic). Looking on at the play in the champion rink competition on the Richmond green, I was truck by the reflection that I had never seen or heard of any definition of tlio term. Cricket legislators and lovers of that game are beginning to bo concerned about the extreme of compressed, and almost absolutely unmarkable, density and evenness to which cricket pitches are worked by the curators of the principal grounds. The inequality of the effect of this is causing doubt of its wisdom and bringing suggestions of its abrogation. The preparation of some bowling greens has somewhat similar prime re-

suits. Some greenkeepers —some clubs —consider a green “good" only vnen it is shaven almost bare of is rolled to a hardness approximating that of a cement floor, and every finger flip means a run of twelve or fifteen feet, Others prefer more grass _ to their “good" green; they like it equally well rolled, love to see some life stilt left in the grass, are desirous of raising a “bite" in it, and wish it to have from ten to fifteen feet less run on it than is on the former. Which is the better? Is there a standard? If noc, is it not possible, and would it not ba wise, to make one? I think so. I think also that it would be benefic'al to the life, and make more the maintenance, of greens if it were done.

At Richmond the state of the green was such that bowls were ■ “coming back.” They were actually finishing in the form of a sickle blade. I saw one bowl pass within two inches of the shot bowl on the forehand, run round it, and finish behind it —that is on the mat side of it—and touching it. I saw another make a return trip that was noticeable from the bowler’s end. Those standing where it stopped, and others seated on the bank, were emphatic in stating that it was 2ft (fin shorter where it stopped than it was at tho farthest point of its run. I think that is ridiculous. If it is not, why grass the greens? Bowls would run longer, wider, with less effort of delivery, and “finish” more noticeably on asphalt, cement, or even wooden surfaces. So far as any copy of the rules inav be relied on the Australian B.C. lias not decreed otherwise. It has enacted that “the green” shall have certain measurements and certain furnishings. Whether “the green" is to be formed of slate, earth, wood, or cloth —painted or naturally coloured —is left to the imagination or the government of practice.