CONCENTRATION

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19668, 9 December 1933, Page 16

CONCENTRATION

HOW TO BECOME A CHAMPION The play of all our greatest bowls’ champions has been marked more than anything else by the player's concentration (writes “Forehand,” in Australasian). No haphazard, carelessly directed shots leave their trusty right hands. Analytical thought, carefully directed sight, will tp succeed, continuity of purpose, and meticulous attention to an opponent’s play, the run of his bowls, and his outlook on the game, I are concentrated on the correct per- [ formance of the task before them. To \ that their success is attributable. Nine hundred and ninety-seven of the bowlers who would like to emulate these bowling heroes make no effort to copy their methods. Granted that conditions are j often against such a course. The afternoon or evening “roll up ’ which J passes for “practice” with them they j consider to be ill-suited for purposej ful bowls. They fear ridicule. Many I of them doubt the need with them !to “make such a business out of j pleasure” in the search for improvement. Therefore their comparative ! failure. „ To one simple little detail i every bowler can attend under all conditions. He can watch carefully the ! run of the bowls in the rink game in | which he is taking part. The longer and more efficiently a bowler practises | the more information he absorbs from | the run of a bowl. Insensibly his I faculties—eyesight, appreciation of power, correct mental registration of ! the parabolic curve or the arc followed

by a bowl on its path to the jack, and the recognition of faults in the green—get to work and prepare him for his task. Before he puts down a bowl he is aware of the pace of the green and its draw. Changes of temperature and vagaries of wind affect both of these. The knowledge that men have of the rink on which they are playing at 3 p.m. may need to be discarded and replaced an hour later. When the sun leaves and the green and shadows fall across its surface, conditions of pace and draw are affected materially. The man who watches the run of bowls in his rink is constantly correcting the errors into which these changes lead him. The best position from which to observe bowls run is on the mat. Failing ability to use the mat for that purpose, a point immediately in line beuind it is the next best. It has been said with truth that “there is no perfect green." "Every green,” wrote one English authority and champion bowler, “has its own problems,” and “no green is absolutely level." What better way can be found to prove a green's peculiarities than by watching the run of bowls over its surface? Therefore watch, watch to the run’s bitter end. Don’t turn the back upon any running bowl; wait untii it has taught you all that it can.