I've seen the light!

And what a pity I didn't see it before Sunday's final!

Managed to amble down to the bowls club this afternoon for some solo practise before the coming weekend's important matches against my brothers up in Scone. And things were definitely not going too well, with more bowls landing short than near the jack right up to the eighth end.

Been really struggling to get my bowls on the right line and for some time I'd been wasting at least one, if not two, out of each four bowls to wide or narrow lines. Remembered the advice of ending the follow through with my hand towards the aiming point, but no matter how I tried it didn't seem to make any difference. Even tried looking down at the bowl as I launched it, and not at the aiming point. Didn't help either.

Then it happened. Started to think about my backswing. In fact, I began to realise at times I had no backswing at all, resulting in my length being all over the place. And when I did have a backswing I hardly gave it any thought at all. Surely if the backswing wasn't accurate the follow through wouldn't be either. Started to focus on a backswing moving to a follow through along the right line. What a difference!

Here are the figures for before and after the change...







The result from end nine on is almost two bowls each end near the jack and less than one short bowl every other end. I've never got anywhere near those kind of results! You can see the sudden change in the scorecard.

Pity about the final. Playing like that I reckon we'd have won. At least I'm now more than ready for the matches against my brothers. It's such an important event for me I'm hauling all my bowls kit the 400+ miles up north.

And just to raise the stakes a little, to make up a foursome they've pulled in the Scone Bowls Club Champion, who just happens to also be the Perthshire County Champion for the last two years. No pressure then!