About five years ago Aaron Zangl stopped to watch members of the venerable Hermosa Beach Lawn Bowling Club roll distinctive, unevenly weighted balls across their neatly kept green at the Clark Stadium complex. He was persuaded to try his hand, and now the 35-year-old Hermosan is preparing to represent the U.S. in Hong Kong and mainland China next month.
“I took to the game well, ability-wise and interest-wise, I guess,” said Zangl, a bartender at Mickie Finnz in Redondo Beach and an all-around recreational athlete who surfs and snowboards, and now has made the U.S. National Team as a lawn bowler.
His selection to team USA, and his entry into the Tiger Bowls tournament in Hong Kong and the China Open in Shenzhen, were based upon his performance in previous tournaments and his personality as a teammate.
Another Hermosa Beach Lawn Bowling Club member, Rosa Baer, has been selected to represent the USA in Hong Kong at another tourney later in the year.
Forty-five nations will be represented in the Asian tournaments next month.
Zangl is a good bit younger than his three U.S. teammates, but the sport that England spawned is skewing younger in other nations, where lawn bowling has achieved greater popularity, at least so far.
“Lawn bowling is not in the Olympics, although we’re trying to get it into the Olympics, but it is in the Commonwealth Games,” Zangl said, referring to international competitions that have taken place across Her Majesty’s former realm, including Canada and India.
Zangl and his teammates, who live in Santa Monica, Newport Beach and San Diego, will face professional lawn bowlers, backed by commercial sponsors and national funding, in the upcoming tournaments.
He plans to get to Hong Kong a week or so before tournament play to become acclimated to the place and to check out the greens, which might in the end turn out to be fairly similar to the short, fast ones in Southern California.
The grass on greens in countries such as Britain and Scotland tends to stand taller, Zangl said, slowing down the balls more and reducing the amount of curve in each bowl. The balls are designed to curve, to the right or left depending on how the bowler holds them upon release.
Multiple levels of strategy and tactics exist in the team sport.
The aim of the game is to get as many balls as close as possible to a white ball called a mark. Teammates can stack up balls to create walls around the mark, but those obstacles can be blown apart by the bowls of the other team. A team also must place some balls behind the mark, in case the mark is struck and moved by an opponent’s bowl.
Hand-eye coordination, a certain “touch” or “feel,” and the ability to remain calm are traits conducive to good lawn bowling, Zangl said.
And like all good members of the 76-year-old Hermosa club, he mentioned the inclusive nature of the sport at a recreational level, and stressed his eagerness to teach any interested newcomers the joys of bowling.
Zangl will hold a fundraising party with a raffle on the afternoon of Sunday, March 6 at Mickie Finnz, 1710 S. Catalina Ave., Redondo Beach. He can be followed on Facebook, and for more on the local lawn bowling club see its page on the city website www.hermosabch.com. ER
