San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
ANCIENT SPORT AIMS FOR NEW VIBE
Jean Keyes (left) and spouse Chris Keyes at the S.F. Lawn Bowling Club in Golden Gate Park.
The official Lawn Bowls Almanac, published in 1985, characterizes the activity as “the trickiest sport ever devised by the mind of man.” That feels like a stretch in the era of chess boxing and American Ninja Warrior, but there is something intrinsic to the human experience in this ancient activity.
“People have been throwing stuff at other stuff for eons,” said John Grimes, president of the San Francisco Lawn Bowling Club, during a recent tour of the group’s clubhouse, a squat building in Golden Gate Park. The city club, which dates back to 1901, is recognized as the oldest municipal club in the United States.
The basic premise of lawn bowling, which involves rolling globular “bowls” along a green to bring them to rest as close as possible to a smaller “jack” ball, is at least eight centuries old. Some primitive rolling bowls — heavy thickcentered objects the size of a human skull — date back to 5,200 B.C.
We came to a painting of Sir Francis Drake — poofy trousers and lace frills — standing with his posse on a green, bowl in hand, apparently arguing with an opponent. Allegedly, the moment was captured as the Spanish Armada amassed just offshore in the English Channel.
“He said the armada could wait, he had to finish the game,” said Grimes, a 72yearold former urban planner who is tall and affable, with wispy white hair and square glasses. “I found out he lost that game. But then he went out and crushed the armada.”
Such is the rich lore surrounding the sport. But like many traditional cultural activities, lawn bowling’s popularity is on the decline. In San Francisco, Grimes is the guy responsible for reversing that trend and keeping the 119yearold club on its feet.
“There’s this stigma around lawn bowling,” Grimes says. “You ask someone to play and they say, ‘Remind me when I’m 89 and I’ll come join you.’ We’ve got to break through that.”
The lawn bowling club is woven into the city’s DNA.
In the decades following the Gold Rush, San Francisco civic leaders and business titans started looking at ways to make the most out of the unoccupied acres of sand dunes on the west side of the city.
Golden Gate Park was established in 1870, and because some of the city’s wealthiest and most influential residents had immigrated from Europe, they set aside a small plot for their favorite outdoor amusement: lawn bowling. John McLaren, a Scottish horticulturalist who was park superintendent at the time, made sure the area was “graded, loamed and manured” for the first game, bowled in October 1901.
During the club’s first century, lawn bowling’s global profile attracted a diverse mix of international members, many of whom already knew the game. By the time Grimes took over as vice president in 2017, the club was hemorrhaging members. There were just 89, almost all of them retirees. Most prospective members were unaware of the sport before wandering by the green and wondering about the old folks rolling oddly shaped balls back and forth.
“As a former urban planner, I look at this club as a public asset,” Grimes said. “It was mostly underutilized and we have a responsibility to optimize the use of it.”
Grimes is doing his best to modernize the club’s vibe and attract younger members. He is pushing to install lights above one of the greens so people can roll after work, as well as a lounge area inside the clubhouse. There are barbecue socials and happy hours. More free lessons. Less formality.
“In the old days, nobody talked on the green,” said Arnie Barros, who, at 97, is the club’s oldest member. “You had to wear nothing but white, with collars. But little by little, everything changed.”
“That quiet game had its time,” Grimes said. “Now it’s not as regimented. People come after work to blow off steam.”
The club now has 128 members. Grimes wants to top 200. He likes to point out that the annual membership cost is only $138. “It’s the best recreational value around.”
I visited the clubhouse recently to get a feel for the club and try the sport for myself.
A revolving cast of members circulated during my visits, trading friendly barbs about their ages and the deteriorating state of each other’s skills. Everyone seemed to know everyone else. Women bowled with men; a refreshing aspect of the game is that the sexes are evenly matched.
Out on the green, I was ready to roll my first bowl, but instructor Robb Pawlak was not impressed with my form. Grimes stepped out ahead to demonstrate proper technique, essentially a deep squatlunge. “You might feel it in your thighs tomorrow morning,” Grimes said.
“They’re half our age, they won’t feel anything!” Pawlak barked.
I made a few more halfhearted practice lunges and, indeed, started to feel my thigh wearing out. On my first bowl, I bent a little low to show Pawlak I was good for it, overexaggerating the smooth bowling motion, and promptly yanked my hamstring on the release.
“Nothing to it!” I said, careful not to grimace at the shooting pain in my leg.
At some point in early adulthood I decided I’d start paying attention to my elders, or at least observing their habits and routines to see if there was something to be gleaned from their behavior. Age has a way of narrowing down a person’s priorities, so how, I wondered, after 70 or 80 years on the planet, do people choose to spend their time?
One of the things I picked up on quickly is that they like to play games. Dominoes, cribbage, backgammon and chess at the table; bocce, petanque and croquet on the green; shuffleboard and its million variations on pavement. Light but tactile activities that blend strategy with chance and can be played easily, reset quickly and enjoyed endlessly.
They’ll tell you it’s a way to keep their bodies limber or their minds sharp. And that may be partially true. But really it’s a way to stay socially connected.
One afternoon at the club, I met a retired couple from Marin who’d recently joined. I asked them what they enjoyed about belonging to the club.
“We both love being out in the beauty of nature, getting exercise,” said Rosemary Miller, 68. “It’s something we can do together, that’s one of the main appeals to me.”
“It’s social, for sure,” replied Tom Fitzsimons, 68, Miller’s spouse. “But you have to have your head in it if you want to be good.”
The club closed in midMarch indefinitely due to concerns about the spread of the COVID19 coronavirus. All of its upcoming events have been postponed for the foreseeable future. For more information, visit www.sflbc.org.
Gregory Thomas is the Chronicle’s editor of lifestyle and outdoors. Email: gthomas@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @GregRThomas