BOWL MAKER’S DILEMMA

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6808, 11 January 1929, Page 4

BOWL MAKER’S DILEMMA

At the December meeting of the N.S.W. Bowling Association, Mr. James Wall received a great welcome from the president, Mr. John Scott, and the delegates.

His reply was a most interesting talk on bowls and the administration of the game in the old land, writes Back Wood in tho Sydney “Sun.” He said that he had been received by the a s s o ciations of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, and being the representative of the Australian Bowling Council, was, on all hands, made most welcome. Bowls, he said, had passed

Mr. J. Scott through a great change In England. In the early days crown greens predominated, and the professional element was very strong. Now the flat greens are in the majority, and wherever the fiat green is to be found the game is purely amateur. There are now 106,000 of the latter players in England alone. 1 He noticed that flat greens had been taken up even more enthusiastically in Scotland than in England. The question of bias is an absorbing one in Great Britain at present, and they are now at the stage which we, in Australia, reached about 20 years ago. One thing is very obvious; our bowls have a bigger draw than those in use there. He had visited a very fine testing table in Glasgow, and upon putting an Australian standax’d bowl over it, he found the draw greater than the average British bowl. Although they agreed with the shape of our standai'd bowl, they were surprised to hear that over 00 per cent, of the bowls used in Australia were composition. _ The English Bowling Association is now submitting a proposal to the international board for a bigger drawing bowl. Mr. Wall had a talk with a manufacturer, who was unable to tell him the significance of 3 bias. He only knew that when a bowl had been tested after turning, it was marked "3 bias,” and those marked “3 full" were for Australia, where they had been asked for a bigger draw. He had played bowls now, practically throughout the Empire, and he was convinced that it is a game worth working for. In Great Britain it is a custom to present the association president with a badge of office after serving one year, and he took the opportunity, with the concurrence of the delegates, of Presenting to Mr. Scott a medal he had had made in London. Similar tokens will now be presented to past and future presidents. Mr. Scott expressed his deep appreciation of Mr. Wall’s act.