Bowling Tips – Eltham Bowling Club

  • The larger ball is called a bowl.
  • Bowls are shaped so that 1 side is heavier than the other.  This causes the bowl to follow a spiral path.  As a bowl slows down the radius of curvature will increase causing the bowl to turn more.
  • There are 2 pictures on each side of the bowl.  The side with the small picture is the heavy side.
  • Bowls are usually supplied by the club for casual players.
  • The small white (or yellow) ball is the jack.
  • The aim of the game is (generally) to get your bowl as close to the jack as possible.
  • The large area around 36m square of short grass or synthetic material is called the green and is where bowls is played.
  • Each green is divided into rinks with a line down the middle and sides and delineated by orange boundary sticks at the sides and a ditch at each end.
  • You bowl from alternate ends standing on a supplied mat.
  • For a bowl to be legal it must come to rest inside the boundary sticks and short of the ditch except that a bowl which has hit the jack in transit is still legal if it finishes, or is knocked into, the ditch.
  • Bowls is easy to play but hard to master.  In particular, fast bowls are quite difficult to deliver accurately.