To refresh your memory, the object of the sport is to roll/throw your bowls towards a jack which is at least 23 meters away. The player who lands the most balls the closest to the jack wins. Now, the physics begins as soon as the bowls leaves the hand. The proper way to throw/roll the bowl is to give it spin with the wrist, sort of like alley bowling. The object of this is to be able to curve your bowl around other bowls that may impede your process to the jack.

Momentum: This is where physics goes into action. By giving the ball spin, when the ball hits the ground, the spin one puts on the ball causes its momentum to change direction. While the momentum is directed outward, away from the jack, when it is thrown, after the ball hits the ground the rotation of the ball causes the ball to move back towards the jack. However, one must also account for the forward momentum of the bowl. While the spin of the ball should make the ball come back to the jack, the total force with which one throws the ball determines how far it will roll after hitting the ground.

Friction: The surface on which the ball lands also has a great deal to do with how far the ball travels, a factor which is vital to control in order to place your bowl well. The grass causes kinetic friction to oppose the ball's movement. In general, the shorter and more neatly trimmed the grass, the less the friction between it and the ball. This is because grass that sticks up requires work to be pushed over.

Work: In order to push through high grass, the ball must do work on each individual blade. The ball must apply a force over the distance the grass blade moves in order to roll over the grass. Through this the ball loses kinetic energy, and thus velocity.

Momentum in collisions: After one gets the bowl near the jack, one must deal with other balls that could impede one's progress to reaching the jack. An important strategy in lawn bowks is to knock other balls away from the jack in order to place your own nearer to it. This is accomplised by rolling your ball into other bowls to get them to move. By transferring the momentum of your ball into that of the stationary ball, you can cause it to move past the jack and cause your bowl to stop close to the jack. Another strategy, more difficult to prefect, is to actually move the jack along with your bowl to where they are away from other bowls, but remain close to each other. This is done by causing an inelastic collision between your bowl and the jack. By tranferring some momentum into the jack, one can try to achieve close to a prefectly inelastic collision and keep the balls close together as they travel.

Only by mastering concepts of physics; namely momentum, friction, work, and force, can one begin to master lawn bowling. Hopefully the above paragraphs will further your interest in physics and lawn bowling, two extremely complimentary topics. Good luck in improving your physics knowledge and bowls game.