picture on front cover/dust jacket
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Title Improve Your Bowls Skills - Delivery Technique & Shot Selection
Author Alex Struthers
Publisher 147 Enterprises, Hamilton, Lanarkshire, Scotland
First published 1997
ISBN 0-9530390-0-5
Edition reviewed 1st
Hardback/softback Softback
List price £2.95
Cover size (cm)
(height x width)
18.2 x 10.9
Number of pages 44
Number of pages with Coloured photos Black & white photos Line drawings
  None 44 26
Synopsis The full title of this manual is Improve Your Bowls Skills - Delivery Technique and Shot Selection. A Personal Guide for the Club Player with Flick Pictures. Written by Alex Struthers, an advanced level club coach at the Hamilton-Caledonian Bowling Club in Scotland, it is packed with clear, authoritative advice on two fundamental areas of bowls.

Although only 44 pages long, it is profusely illustrated with 100 photographs and more than 50 line drawings. Forty-four of the photos are 'flick pictures' - 22 showing a classic delivery for a right-handed player, and the other 22 illustrating it for a left-handed player - a thoughtful inclusion.

The booklet adopts a very practical approach and concentrates on: delivery technique, emphasising the need for a smooth, flowing and consistent action; and shot selection, based on examples of different heads. Subjects included in the first section are choice of bowl, grip, delivery stances, using the mat width, the swing (step, timing, weight control and arm movement), coordination and a checklist of the full delivery sequence. The second section (shot selection) starts with a brief discussion on green speed and then moves on to describe the draw shot, positional bowl, chap and lie (tap and lie), running bowl, wick, plant, jack trail and drive. The manual concludes with seven pages of questions and answers - the questions having been raised by club members during coaching sessions.

Few bowls books match the concentration of sound, well-illustrated advice this booklet contains, and few bowlers - whatever their standard - will fail to benefit from reading it cover to cover.