Fingers' click

Down the bowls club this evening for a solo practice. Heck of a schedule from Wednesday to Wednesday. Two semi-finals, two quarter-finals.

The Sunday quarter-final is one of the hardest. My opponent will move the mat up the green by about ten yards if in difficulties. He caused me trouble with that tactic in our Drawn Pairs quarter-final, a very close match and lucky win to us. So playing odd ends with the mat ten yards up the green, jack just out from the ditch, even ends on a maximum length jack.

Pretty average results up to end thirteen. Tends to be a worse result than real life. Have to resist sending the bowls down machine gun fashion and pause between deliveries to recreate a real match feel. And of course there are no opposition bowls to target or knock against.

With five ends to go, suddenly realise the importance of fingertip control. For a medium length jack the minimum backswing is accurate enough, but on long and short jacks something extra is needed. The effort to get to a long jack and the absence of any effort for a short jack means it's all a bit unstable.

Using my fingers to give extra or finer weight seems to work wonders. On a long jack it provides more weight without the risk of a wobbly follow through. On a short jack only fingertip weight is needed. And in both cases the accuracy is much greater. Bit like using binoculars. The middle focus dial gets you 95% focus. How many people know the diopter ring positioned on one of the eyepieces gains the extra 5%?

The result? Of the last five ends, two ends had two bowls and two ends had one bowl within a foot of the jack. Half of the bowls were within two feet. Never achieved anything like that. On one maximum length end all four bowls were tight behind the jack.

Here's the updated chart. Good result overall. Competition-winning form in the last five ends ~:0)))