A Beginners Guide to Lawn Bowls

THE BASIC RULES OF LAWN BOWLS

The best way to learn lawn bowls is by playing it. Here are the basic rules of lawn bowls, once you understand these you can get out onto our green and learn the rest as you go!

This guide for the rules of lawn bowls for beginners is for those who just want the basics of lawn bowling, without any extra complication.

Read on, get out on the green and get playing.

The aim of lawn bowling is to roll your bowl as close to a smaller white ball (known as the jack) as possible.

You want to get one or more of your bowls closer to the jack than your opponent

PLAYING THE GAME

A coin is tossed to decide which team bowls first. The first bowler places the mat. It must be placed centrally.

The first bowler rolls the jack to whatever distance they like.

The only restrictions is it must be at least 21 meters from the mat, and must stay out of the ditch. There is usually a marker on the rink to show where the minimum distance is.

Once the jack has come to rest it is placed centrally by the marker with the help of the bowler. The jack now becomes the target.

Teams alternate taking shots. Each member of the team will take all of their shots before the next member takes over. When playing any shot the player bowling must always have one foot on the mat.

Any bowls that are in play can be moved by another shot, and they stay active to where they finish. This includes the jack. Any bowl that finishes in the ditch is considered out of play.

Once all players have finished their shots the game is scored.

The winning side gets one point for each bowl that is closer to the jack than their opponent’s nearest bowl.

The winning team will get to go first on the next “end”.

This will be played in the opposite direction to the previous end.