Played like a lemon

My biggest challenge to date, playing against the club's best bowler for the first time. And in the men's four bowls singles. He's only won this competition eleven times.

Prepared as best I can. Arrive at the green to find Sunday's anticipation of the weather conditions is spot on. Been raining all afternoon and the green is damp. But the practice on my opponent's favourite rink 1 is scuppered. That rink has the markers removed because of overuse. So we're playing on rink 2, supposedly a bit tricky.

Forget any issues with the rink. It's the eighth end before I score. Down 12-2, I know where the line is but can't bowl to it. Too many are landing wide, narrow or just a foot or two short. When I do lie shot bowl, my opponent has an amazing knack of asking the marker which is shot bowl and landing his last just within it.

On the eleventh end I realise the problem. To keep my arm straight on delivery, I normally place my right hand behind my left elbow (I'm left handed) to lock the elbow just before swinging. But the green is so damp and mucky I've been holding two towels in my right hand when bowling. As a result, my delivery arm has been swinging all over the place.

As soon as I drop the towels, lock my arm and focus on a secondary aiming point just a couple of yards in front of the mat, things immediately improve. In the next four ends I pick up three singles to my opponent's one. Still need a better rate of recovery if I'm going to win.

And then my opponent shows his class on the fifteenth end. I'm sitting with shot bowl and a measure for second. His three bowls have slightly overshot the jack. With his last bowl he quite deliberately plays a yard on to gather and roll the jack back amongst his previous three. He's so confident of the result he offers to shake hands for the end of the match. With my last bowl I'd just tried another draw to the jack. Hadn't got a clue of the danger I was in!

A sobering experience for me. Just shows how thin is the veneer of skill and experience I've gained in my three years of bowls. A simple issue of holding two towels. And a failure to see an obvious danger. Added to that, on playing the club's best bowler I froze like a rabbit trapped in the headlights of an oncoming car. Won't make any of those mistakes again. Here's the scorecard.