CLEARWATER, Fla. — Pickleball is popular. You might have played bocce ball. But have you heard of lawn bowling? It's been around for centuries: a game based on skill versus strength, and one of the only places to play here in the U.S. is at the Clearwater Lawn Bowls Club.
“It was actually brought here from Canada 100 years ago by Canadian snowbirds who looked around and realized they didn't have lawn bowling, so they created this club,” club secretary David Cooper said.
Cooper and club vice president Dick Judycki gave 10 Tampa Bay a quick overview of how to play.
“We'll put our bowls down,” Copper showed us.
“I'm going to set the mat. You do that by walking two meters out,” Cooper said.
Since lawn bowling is a British sport, they use the metric system to measure so, converted, that’s about 6 feet. Cooper shows us a white ball that looks similar to a cue ball.
“This is a jack. This is our target, and I can set this as far as I want or as short as I want within bounds,” he added.
Rolling the colorful bowl across the rink, the score could come down to just millimeters.
“You get one point for one bowl you have closest to the jack until the other team's closest bowl,” Cooper added. "It's a great sport for any age. We have youth bowls. You can bowl as young as 9-10 years old, and we have members here who are in their late 90s who are still bowling, so it really is a sport of strategy.
"It's a sport of skill."
Since the game is popular in Great Britain and throughout the Commonwealth, there are people who come to play in Clearwater from all over the world.
“You get to meet people from everywhere. We have somebody from South Africa is a member of ours. We have two from Wales,” Judycki said.
They're not only proud to boast the most hall of fame bowlers in the U.S., the club will celebrate its centennial on Feb. 17.
“We’re in the process of working with the state to get the club designated as a state historic site,” Cooper said. “We've been working on that for a little over a year. It's a pretty rigorous process.”
They're also hoping to get some younger bowlers interested, so what's old or even ancient can be new again.
“Our challenge is just trying to introduce a sport that most people here have never heard of and they don't really know what it is and just let them know that it's a great sport,” Cooper said.
Even for people who might not be competing for championships.
“This is awesome. It's low impact which is great for many, many people unlike for instance pickleball which is hard on the joints, the knees and the ankles especially,” Judycki said.
On Thursday nights, the club allows players to bowl under the lights for just $10.
You can learn how to lawn bowl and more about the club’s 100-year history by clicking here.