When your best just ain't good enough

Love the feeling of waking up when there's a competitive singles bowls match. Think about it throughout the day. This one is my first Club competition game of 2018. Handicap singles. Got the second-highest handicap of 7. My opponent, a County player, is playing off 4.  So I've got to get to 24, him 21. No pressure!

This is the first time we've played against each other. Win the toss and give him the jack. Why did I do that? Something echoing in the back of my mind about seeing what line he plays. But we're playing at home! Maybe want to see what length he plays. Either way, a bit daft. But I win the first shortish end anyway.

Not so the next five ends. I'm playing as well as ever. Great line. Length good too. Almost all my bowls are landing near the jack or slightly behind. Doesn't matter what I do, my opponent always has an answer. When I need to move the jack or knock one of his bowls out, I'm fractions of an inch away. When he needs a similar shot, it's a success. Before I know it I'm 1-11 down.

At last get the jack back. Pretty obvious I'm going to play long. Magic! Works for a couple of ends to pull the score back to 7-11. But when I lose the eleventh end by one, it's back to shortish ends. And it's back to heads which are really tight, my opponent squeezing in his bowl/s a fraction closer than mine. Win one more end, but in just over an hour it's all finished, a loss 8-21.

With this kind of result I usually come away trying to figure out what went wrong. Tonight there was nothing I could do. Played well. Just met an opponent at the top of his game who had more luck on the day. Here's the scorecard.