Club invites public to join the fun

CORONA DEL MAR — The trick to lawn bowling seems to be getting low and finding the right touch, or “weight,” so that you don’t overthrow your bowl. But the trick to having fun while playing seems to be hooking up with the lawn bowlers at the Newport Harbor Lawn Bowling Club on Crown Drive.

At the club, it’s all about camaraderie and outdoor fun, and on Saturday members showed off the digs at their Saturday on the Green event. Locals who had never bowled came for pizza, drinks and a lesson or two.

Irvine residents John and Carol Shumway work on Newport Center Drive and always drive by the lawn bowling club.

Shumway decided to try her hand at the game, which started in England, when the company she works for announced they were going to have a lawn bowling event.

“I could see this really being fun…. I think it’s just something that’s really nice to do outside,” Carol Shumway said after she had practiced a few times.

Although she said she is not athletic, she seemed to do pretty well for her first time, receiving praise from instructors as she rolled her bowl toward the jack.

A bowl and jack? The object of the game is to roll the bowl — a heavy, roundish ball that curves to one side or the other when rolled — closest to the jack — a small, white marker ball on the other side of the bowling green lane, called a rink.

Essentially, whichever player lands the closest, without going too far, is the winner. Easy, right?

“It’s harder than it looks,” Diane Bloom said after she rolled a bowl that didn’t hit the desired target.

But despite the game taking some practice and patience, the club is more about the friendship and fun than hard-core competition.

“The camaraderie is really what it’s all about,” Newport Harbor Lawn Bowling Club member John Groothius said. “You can be as competitive as you want to be.”

Occasionally the club sees the true competitive nature of the game when it hosts international tournaments, including one scheduled for the fall.

The club is only open to members, but anyone is welcome to join. Members, who range in age by decades, have access to the greens whenever they’d like to play.

And it’s not an expensive pastime — there’s a $35 initiation fee, and it costs $125 per year to join, which works out to just over $10 a month.

The costs are a small price to pay for the fun and friendship that comes with membership, Groothius said.

“It’s what it’s all about here — good, clean family fun outdoors,” Groothius said.

For information about lawn bowling or to join, call the club’s treasurer, Jan Hargraves, at (949) 640-6049.