It’s Not Just a Simple Game for Old Folks : Lawn bowling: County residents who will play at Pacific championships say the sport is challenging and highly competitive.

Merton Isaacman couldn’t believe what his father was suggesting. Take up lawn bowling? At 27? He had to be joking. Merton once played semipro soccer. He broke his back playing rugby. But lawn bowling? Sounded about as thrilling as a game of tiddlywinks.

“I told him it was a lot of nonsense, an old man’s game,” Isaacman, a South African native, said. “He said, ‘Why don’t you put your money where your mouth is?’ ”

He did--and lost $100. Suddenly, the game he always referred to as “old man marbles” intrigued him. Isaacman was hooked.

Twenty years later, the Irvine resident is among the best lawn bowlers in the United States. He and Ed Quo of Fountain Valley are part of the five-man team that will represent the U.S. at the Pacific Lawn Bowling Championships, Sunday through July 31 at Victoria, Canada. Laguna Hills resident Ann Beckley is expected to compete in the women’s division.

Mention lawn bowling and the average American probably will shrug. That’s a sport for, uh, old people, right? Well, not exactly. Australians learn to play lawn bowls (its traditional name) in high school. The reigning world pairs champion, Richard Corsie of Scotland, is 26. Konni Quo, Ed’s daughter, is a rising star at 25. And there has been talk lately of a 14-year-old boy tearing up the lawn bowling scene in Santa Barbara.

But that’s the sport’s competitive side. In the U.S., the majority of the 22,000 participants--senior citizens, mostly--are out there simply to have fun.

Isaacman, 47, isn’t one of them.

“I have to win, I play to win,” Isaacman, a real estate developer, says. And when he plays poorly? “I get very upset with myself. I mean, this is a gentleman’s game, but when I get home I want to kill myself.”

Quo, 58, and a printing broker, says he used to take the sport too seriously. Not anymore. “I used to be type A,” he says. “Now I’m type B.” But he keeps a stash of antacids tucked away in his equipment bag just in case.

According to the Official Lawn Bowls Almanac, the sport is believed to have originated 7,000 years ago. A British archeologist, the almanac says, reported finding rounded objects in the grave of a young Egyptian. The archeologist believed these objects to be the precursors to modern-day lawn bowls. They might have been rocks.

The game has had some famous supporters. William Shakespeare wrote about it in “Richard II,” George Washington’s father built a bowling green at Mt. Vernon and Walt Disney, a member of the Beverly Hills Bowling Club, was said to be quite a fan.

Although the almanac describes the game as “the trickiest sport ever devised by the mind of man,” the object is quite simple: Players try to roll their “bowls” so they will come to rest as close as possible to the “jack,” the small white ball that is rolled onto the green as a target.

But bowls are slightly egg-shaped, meaning they never roll in a straight line, meaning first-timers usually go about 10 seconds before deciding that this is, indeed, the trickiest sport ever devised by man.

“Reproducible delivery is the key,” says Quo, stretching his legs and back before a recent tournament. “It’s like golf. If you can swing the same every time, you’re in business.”

The game has been described as a rolling version of chess. It is said to inspire everything from inner peace to fits of rage, though cursing and temper tantrums are frowned upon. Criticizing opponents, teammates or the condition of the green are no-nos, as is shouting, “Don’t choke, bowlbrain!” as your opponent readies for his delivery.

“It’s a conservative atmosphere. To the casual onlooker, there’s not a lot of evident humor,” Quo says. “We don’t slide through mud puddles. We don’t throw jacks at each other when we get ticked off.”

Not that it’s entirely prim and proper. In a recent edition of Bowls magazine, columnist Joe Skipshot (a.k.a. Ed Quo) wrote: “Lawn bowling is like sex. You don’t have to be good to enjoy it.” (In the same column, Skipshot named what he believed to be the worst tournament distraction of the season: a wet T-shirt contest going on in an adjacent park).

Quo, son of a Chinese diplomat, was born in England and settled in Fountain Valley nearly 30 years ago. He started lawn bowling in 1986 and three years later was selected to the 14-member U.S. national team, a position he has retained ever since.

Some players keep chalk, needed to mark bowls when they come in contact with the jack, in their equipment bag. Quo tucks his at the top of his sock. Some players might forget the importance of hydration. Quo says he takes in so much fluid, “I can hear myself sloshing when I walk down the court.” Some players spend $100 on a pair of regulation lawn bowling shoes (the soles have little or no tread). Quo buys inexpensive deck shoes and sands the bottoms with an electric belt sander until they’re smooth.

Quo and Isaacman are naturalized U.S. citizens, as are their teammates for the Pacific Championships. An international flavor is nothing new to lawn bowling. Last year, Isaacman played in the World Bowls--the Olympics of lawn bowling--in Worthing, England. This week, he and Quo will compete against everyone from Seupepe Sasagi of Western Samoa to Piwen Pomaleu of Papau New Guinea. Thirteen countries will be represented.

Although they know that some lawn bowlers in other countries make a living playing the sport, Quo and Isaacman aren’t complaining. They’re happy they have the chance to play against the world’s best.

Especially Isaacman.

Twenty years ago, when his father bet he couldn’t out-bowl him, “I thought it would be the easiest $100 I’d make in my life,” Isaacman says.

He hasn’t called it “old man marbles” since.