Today I woke up a lot earlier than I have since being on a break from school. I planned to meet up with my friend Sage and do some trail running @ Balboa park on the west side of the 163 freeway in San Diego. The trails were intense and there was a staircase halfway through that we climbed with about 50 stairs. I was pretty winded after that. We ended up running for about 1 and a half miles.
On the way back to the car we passed some people lawn bowling with what looked like croquet balls and a large shortly cut grass box about 50x50 feet in length. I can't remember the actual measurements but nonetheless, started to talk to this guy who is a part of the club and he asked if we wanted to try this game.
He took us to this shed where he sized our hand up with the proper size lawn ball. I used a 3 first and the size 5 felt more natural.
So Rick I believe was his name explains the rules and procedures of the game. You can play 2-3 people and you have a skip and a lead. One goes to the other end and sets the jack, which is a little white ball.
Then whoever won the last point sets the green mat at least 2 meters from the end of box. You have a chalk board to keep score with. The way to score is who has the ball closest to the jack. If you have more balls closer to the jack then you can win more points.
The difference with the balls are that they are weighted on the outside so when you roll them towards the jack you have to throw them out from the skip because they start to curve in when they lose speed. The balls are marked with a smaller circle on the inside non-weighted side and a larger circle on the weighted outside part of the ball.
Each person has 4 balls to play and each player takes a turn and. A whole game usually consists of 8 plays.
As I said earlier the winner decides where the jack will be placed so they can decide if it is going to be a short game or a long game. If you win and you do better at the short game then you can place it short and give yourself the advantage.
In my game today my buddy Sage won by 4 points so hats off to him. I was holding the lead for a while but didn't keep it going. It was still a blast.
You can play for social enjoyment, it is a lot of fun and you can talk trash if you want. You can also play competitively and there are tournaments all over the world.
In fact by talking with one of the club members he told us that instead of golf courses on country clubs in Australia there are lawn bowling courts. It is quite popular there and it is regularly televised on TV.
Here are some other terms I learned today from playing: line, weight, grass, skip, jack, and that physics play a big part in this game.
Life's all about trying new things.
Carpe diem
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