Bowls - The Basics

The game is played on a square of closely cut grass called the "green", which is divided into playing areas called "rinks". We have 6 rinks at Henley some greens may have more, or less. The green is surrounded by a small ditch to catch any bowls which leave the green, and a bank on which markers indicate the corner and centre of each rink.

Players take turns to deliver their bowls from a mat at one end of the rink towards a small target ball, referred to as the "jack’, at the other end of the rink. The delivery of all bowls from one end of the rink to the other is called an End. A game consists of an agreed number of Ends.

Bowls are shaped so that they take a curved path towards the jack. To be successful, the bowl must be delivered at the right speed, called the weight, and along the right line.

Your objective is to get one or more of your bowls closer to the jack than those of your opponent. One point is scored for each counting bowl.

Games may be between single players, pairs, triples or even four player teams. Each player will have the same number of bowls, either 2, 3 or 4 bowls each. In singles, the winner is usually the first to score 21 points. In the other three formats, the winner is typically the team which scores the most points over a set number of Ends.

Henley's matches against other Clubs are usually organised as five teams of three players each using three bowls each. This is called a Triples match and represented on paperwork as 5T. These games are played over 18 Ends.

Some Clubs we play against only have three rinks so in these matches we typically have three teams of four players each using two bowls. This is called a Rinks or Fours match and represented on paperwork as 3R. These games are played over 21 Ends.

A 5T or 3R match will typically take 2.5 hours.

Points, played on Tuesday mornings, is organised as a Triples competition of 12 Ends and takes about 1.5 hours to 2 hours to play (see the About Us page).

Spoons, which is played on Friday afternoons, is also a Triples competition. Three games of 4 Ends each (i.e. 12 Ends in all) are played and again it takes about 1.5 hours to 2 hours.

In the event there are insufficient numbers to make up equal teams of Triples we will organise teams into Pairs who each play with 4 bowls each.

So drop us a message via our Contact Us page and lets get bowling!