Bowls · Rink 3
Bias, weight and finding a set of bowls that fits your hand
Most people who come to us for the first time play with a set borrowed from the box in the pavilion, and most of them are playing with bowls the wrong size for their hands. It is the conversation about equipment I have more often than any other, and this is roughly how it goes.
- Written
- 30 August 2025
- Looked over
- 11 October 2025
- Reading
- 8 minutes
- Ends
- 4
- Green
- South London
What bias actually is
A lawn bowl is not a ball. It is shaped slightly flatter on one side than the other, so that as it slows down it curves towards the flatter side. That curve is the bias, and every modern bowl has it, set when the bowl is made and tested against a standard. On each side of a bowl there are rings, and the smaller ring marks the biased side, the side the bowl will turn towards. The first thing we teach anyone is to check which way the small ring faces before every delivery. A bowl delivered the wrong way round curves away from the jack and off into the next rink, which is embarrassing for everyone and unwise if the next rink is busy.
Bias differs from one model to another. Some bowls take a wide, sweeping line and finish tight; others run straighter and turn only at the very end. Neither is better. A wider bowl is useful for getting round a bowl sitting in front of the jack, a narrower one for a crowded head with no room to swing out. With newcomers I care far less about this than about size, because a bowl of the wrong size will never be delivered consistently enough for its bias to matter.
Size, weight and the span of a hand
Bowls come in numbered sizes from small upwards, and within each size in a heavier and a lighter weight. The simple test for size is to hold the bowl in the delivery hand with the fingers underneath and the thumb on the upper side, and see whether the tips of the thumb and middle finger can nearly meet round the running surface. If the gap between them is more than a couple of centimetres, the bowl is too big; the player will grip it too hard and drop the wrist on release. If the fingers overlap, it is too small and it will slip.
The box in our pavilion holds seven sets, gathered over the years from players who stopped or bought new, in a mixture of sizes. When someone new comes along I try two or three sizes with them before they bowl a single end. Last spring we had a newcomer, a woman in her thirties who worked nights at the hospital and came to us in the afternoons, who had spent three sessions with the largest set in the box simply because it was on top. She could barely hold them. With a set two sizes smaller her bowls began finishing near the jack within the hour, and she said it was like being handed a different game.
Chalked up in the pavilion
- Hold the bowl as you would to deliver it, fingers underneath and thumb on the side
- Thumb and middle finger should almost meet round the running surface
- A heavier bowl helps on a fast green and in wind, a lighter one on a slow heavy green
- Borrowed sets are for finding out, not for keeping
The grip, and why the wrist matters more than the arm
There are two common grips. In the claw grip the fingers and thumb spread round the bowl, which suits smaller hands and people who like to feel the bowl's weight. In the cradle grip the bowl sits back in the palm with the fingers underneath, which is steadier on long ends and in a breeze. I use the cradle and so do most of our group, but I do not press it on anyone. What matters in either grip is that the wrist stays behind the bowl and straight through the delivery. A bent wrist at the moment of release puts a wobble on the bowl, and a wobbling bowl will not take its bias cleanly.
The delivery itself comes from a step forward and an easy swing of the arm, with the bowl let go close to the grass so that it runs rather than bounces. The arm does less work than beginners expect. The pace comes mostly from the length of the step and the swing, and people who try to push the bowl from the shoulder tend to send it long on one end and short on the next.
When somebody wants a set of their own
After a season or so some people want bowls of their own, usually because they have found a size they like in the box and would prefer something not shared with half the park. My advice is to keep borrowing into a second season, by which time they know which grip they use and whether they like a wider or a narrower line. Second-hand sets turn up often enough when older players give up, and the bias on a good set does not wear away the way people assume. Bowls carry a date stamp, and there is a periodic retest of bias for competitive play, but for an informal group on a park green that makes no difference at all.
What does matter is that the four bowls are a matched set, the same size, weight and model, marked with the same small emblem. Mixing bowls from different sets turns every delivery into a separate problem. One of our regulars played most of a summer with three bowls from one set and an odd one she had found in her father's shed, and every fourth bowl she sent went its own way. She knew it, too. She said it kept her humble.
Written by one of the group and read over by the others after a session. Last changed 11 Oct 2025.Back to the score sheet