On the far end of the synthetic bowling green turf in Kallang, 83-year-old Mary Lim holds a red ball two centimetres from her nose before she stoops and rolls it some 25 metres towards a smaller grey ball, referred to as a “jack”.
For the uninitiated, the object of lawn bowling is to bowl the ball (also known as a bowl) as close as possible to the jack. Points are awarded according to the number of bowls a player has that are closest to the jack.
Metres away on the same turf, Singapore’s Isaac Yu points to the spot he wants his teammate Harriman Yuen to place his bowl.
Both 23, Yu and Yuen represent the future of the sport here – and are no doubt testament to the fact that lawn bowling ain’t just for elderly sportswomen like Lim, who was representing the Singapore Cricket Club along with Josephine Sarbo and Philomena Goh.
Yu and Yuen went on to clinch the Under-25 men’s sets title in the Lion City Cup, an international pairs tournament, beating Malaysia’s Haiqal Azami and Ahmad Zikry Sazeli in the final 6-5, 4-12, 1-0 (tiebreaker).
The duo marked Singapore’s sole triumph at the Lion City Cup, which was making its return after a five-year hiatus, with participants from eight countries – including India – and five local clubs doing battle in the Open and Under-25 categories in both the sets and ends formats.
The seven-day competition, which also took place at the Tanglin Club, was part of the World Bowls Series.
The two teams from the Philippines clinched three of the eight titles on offer, while Hong Kong bagged the Under-25 men’s ends title and the Under-25 women’s sets title, and Malaysia emerged as champions in the Under-25 women’s ends category.
SCC’s Lim, Sarbo and Goh fell short in the end as they went down to New Zealand’s Leeane Poulson and Robyne Walker 6-3, 5-5 in the Women’s Open sets.
“We’ve seen a lot of young players playing here this week,” said Brett O’Riley, 62, regional director of Oceania for World Bowls. “You’ve got two of the youngest players in the tournament playing in a final, and possibly the oldest player playing in another, so that says something.
“Young people do enjoy the sport, and I think what’s attracting them to the game is that lawn bowling is a no-contact sport, and you don’t have to be of a particular physical type to play.”
“Singapore is a young, but emerging country when it comes to bowls. There are some very good young players and so I’m expecting the scene here to develop.”
Yu picked up lawn bowls in 2022 after sustaining an anterior cruciate ligament injury while playing football in his teens. Lawn bowling, he said, does not demand too much of his injured left knee.
“I looked around for a sport I could play, where my injury would not be a physical limitation. And I found bowls, which I had actually been watching since like 2010, but I never knew how to play it,” said the third-year Nanyang Technological University student.
“Only after I got injured did I have the thought that this was a sport that I could play and work hard at to represent Singapore.”
