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Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Let it Roll: Willow Glen resident Helen Brady, 65, looks on as Bob Hill, a past president of the Santa Anita Lawn Bowling Club takes his turn. Brady is club treasurer for the San Jose Lawn Bowls Club.
Lawn bowling is the sport of choice for some in Willow Glen
San Jose bowls club to sponsor professional tournament in area
By Kate Carter
It is a summery Tuesday night in Willow Glen, and the San Jose Lawn Bowls Club is out recruiting new members. About a dozen bowlers, dressed primarily in white and wearing flat-soled shoes, gather at Bramhall Park at the club's lawn bowling green, near the corner of Camino Ramon and Britton Avenue. They are here to indulge in their pastime and introduce novices to the joys and challenges of sending a weighted ball nearly 100 feet along meticulously trimmed grass in the company of supportive teammates and opponents alike.
"It's a very civil kind of game," says Helen Brady, 65, the club's treasurer who lives in Willow Glen. Her husband, Ken Brady, 73, was the club's president for three years. "But everywhere you go, clubs are shrinking," she adds.
Lawn bowling is an English sport similar to Italian bocce ball or French Petanque. It is played by teams and individuals, both amateur and professional, all over the world. In the United States, it tends to attract senior players, and most of the 20-some members of the San Jose club are over age 50. But the group is trying to make its game accessible to people of all ages by hosting free and casual lessons twice a week--Tuesdays at 6 p.m. and Saturdays at 10 a.m.
"[Lawn bowling] is not too strenuous, but it incorporates both the physical and mental," Helen says. "It's a good mechanism for focusing. It's important for seniors to do something physical and mental. But the younger people are very often the better players."
The Bradys can certainly hold their own on the green, though. They have been bowlers with the San Jose club for about six years, and they bowl several days a week, on days when they aren't walking or hiking. All that practice has paid off for them: earlier this month, they won the John McLaren Lawn Bowls Tournament in San Francisco and also took first place in lawn bowling in the San Jose Senior Games.
"Some days you're really good, and some days you're not," Helen says.
The couple also appreciates the social benefits of the sport, which in some countries is played over drinks. They meet bowlers from all over the Bay Area, the country and the world, and earlier this year they took a trip to the United Kingdom as guests with Walnut Creek's Rossmoor Lawn Bowls Club, the first American club to visit bowling clubs in most of the nine British cities they visited, Ken says.
"We were really given the red-carpet treatment there," he says. They were also introduced to drinking on the green, which they declined, and were treated to meals and entertainment in the evenings, says Ken.
The San Jose club reflects the international nature of the sport, with a 93-year-old member from Switzerland, a Russian couple in their 20s, and members from Hong Kong, Fiji and England's Isle of Man. Lawn bowlers tend to be "citizens of the world," Helen says.
The San Jose club, a member of the Pacific Inter-Mountain Division of the U.S. American Lawn Bowls Association, also boasts professional champions like John Luster and Frank Souza, as well as a bowling green considered the best in the Bay Area by knowledgeable bowlers. Aug. 23 and 24 the club will host the American Professional Lawns Bowls Championships.
"We've got some of the best bowlers in the U.S. here," says club President Ken Gillett.
But the group isn't too worried about competition--it just wants to play some good games.
"It's great evening relaxation," Gillett says.
Lawn bowling can be traced back in different forms about 7,000 years. It arrived in England after Roman conquerors brought their game of Bocce to the island, and it gradually evolved into its present form.
In lawn bowling, the balls are called "bowls" and are oblong spheres. One of the flatter sides is weighted slightly, giving the bowls a slightly elliptical trajectory. That curve makes lawn bowling more complicated than Bocce or Petanque. It also means that lawn bowling greens need to have well-maintained, flat and short grass and that the unique qualities of each green are important to competitive bowlers.
The city of San Jose maintains the club's green, the only one in the city, although there are greens in Santa Clara and Sunnyvale. The lawn bowling season runs April though November, although local greens remain open all year.
Games can be played by individual opponents or opposing two-, three- or four-person teams. Players in singles and doubles games each bowl four bowls in a round, while players in triples games bowl three, and players in four-person games--called "rinks"-- bowl two. Between 14 and 18 rounds are played in a game, which can take up to three hours.
The goal of the game is to earn the most points. Points are assigned to bowls closest to a small white ball that is bowled first, call the "jack." The jack is bowled first by the team captain, called the "lead," and placed by the team "skip" member to make sure it is centered in the lane, or "rink." A bowl can move the jack and other bowls, which can then change the score. The team's "vice" then tabulates the score after each round, using a measuring tape or calipers if necessary to determine the nearest bowl.
Players use strategy and tactics and each has his or her own style, but they are all there to enjoy the outdoors, the sport and each other. The more, the merrier, they say.
For more information about the San Jose Lawn Bowls Club, call Gillett at 408.226.6041.
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
