In Lawn Bowlers’ Sphere, Gentility and Tradition Prevail

The sun is directly overhead and hot, the greens are perfectly mowed, if a bit dry, and the only sound that cuts through the low mix of Australian, English and South African accents is the dull “thuck” of one ball striking another. It could be somewhere else entirely, the club at some far-flung outpost of the British Empire--Kowloon or Bombay, perhaps.

Instead, we are at a bowling green in Westwood, a literal stone’s throw from the second hole of the Los Angeles Country Club and down the street from the uberhaus of Aaron Spelling. Oblivious to the curious glances of joggers and dog-walkers and the caravan of tour buses prowling for celebrities, several dozen lawn bowlers are engaged in slow-paced exercises in brinkmanship, rolling grapefruit-size black balls as close as possible to the single white ball. Crisply outfitted completely in white, they talk little and roll their bowls intently, scrutinizing the green for any edge.

“From the outside, it just looks like we’re meandering around,” says Marcella Krisel of the 100-plus member Holmby Park Lawn Bowling Assn., one of seven lawn-bowling clubs in Los Angeles County sprinkled from the Westside to Arcadia to Long Beach. “They don’t realize how intense it can get. Rain is the only thing that stops us.”

Holmby Park has hosted lawn bowling since 1925, the year the association was formed to preserve “bowls,” as lawn bowlers call their sport. Now, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays at 12:30 p.m., coffee and tea are brewed, the grounds are cleaned and markers are carefully set out on the green for the 40 or so players who make up the club’s hard-core contingent.

As befits the stereotype, they are mostly older and retired, but they’ve learned to shrug off with a smile the cracks about lawn bowling being “old man’s marbles.”

“It’s a young person’s sport that old people can play,” says George Seitz, 79, who has been playing at Holmby Park for 15 years since a bad back forced him to give up other sports.

“This I can handle,” says Len Foreman, 77, a club member for the last three years. “I used to drive by and see all these old duffers and wonder what they were doing. Now I’m one of these old duffers.”

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Few sports possess the tradition of bowls. Long popular in Britain and many of its former colonies, lawn bowling was apparently invented during the 12th Century, although some archeologists say a version of the game was played by ancient Egyptians and Mayans, the latter of whom used skulls for balls. In the most famous (and probably apocryphal) story, Sir Francis Drake reputedly postponed confronting the Spanish Armada until he finished a game of bowls.

“Having an activity that had an element of tradition meant something to me,” says Brain Studwell, 54, a retired banker who has played at Holmby for the last two years. “It’s so genteel, so . . . very civilized.”

Many come to Holmby Park because it’s in their blood. About one-third of the club’s membership, Krisel says, hails from countries where the sport is routinely played by people of all ages. The parents of English rock star Billy Idol, for example, bowl at the green when they’re in town. Likewise, one of the more occasional spectators of Holmby bowling is former President Ronald Reagan, who traces his lineage to Ireland.

“This is the most popular” bowling green, says British-born Angela Pick, who has been playing at Holmby Park for 14 years. “When people come from different countries, the first thing they want to do is find a bowling green and then they find their way down here.”

Bea Simon, who arrived with her husband from South Africa last year, adds: “As immigrants, this helped us tremendously to settle down.”

Others show up for the joie de vivre . Although the competition may be stiff at Holmby, club members say the showdowns at nearby lawn-bowling clubs in Beverly Hills and Santa Monica are frequently less than good-natured. Holmbyites believe those players lack the camaraderie of their group, which meets 90 minutes before each match to eat and schmooze and draws teams at random to ensure that no cliques dominate the play. Only on Thursdays does the action at Holmby get a little heated. That’s when the matches are played for stakes of 25 cents apiece.

The other clubs “are always very competitive,” Studwell says. “We’re very gregarious, a very social group. People don’t quit our club. They either move out of the area or die.”

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It’s a reminder of the sport’s British heritage that lawn bowling has a gently wicked nature to it. Although the object of the game is straightforward, a straight roll becomes impossible because the balls are irregularly shaped. Throwing good rolls consistently is a skill as easily acquired as juggling chain saws.

“The appeal is that you can’t conquer it,” says Krisel, who has been playing for 14 years. “The conditions change every time. It’s a sport you can never master.” In order to attract new members, the club loans equipment and provides free instruction to potential players.

One of Holmby’s few younger members attests to the sport’s deceptive difficulty.

“I’m a man who loves competition,” and in bowls “you have three or four levels of competition,” says Adam Altshuler, 31, a former scratch golfer who began bowling at the urging of his father, an avid player. “Lawn bowling is competitive but as contemplative as chess.”

Robert Altshuler, 72, talks not of the competition as much as the serenity that descends while he is on the green, a peacefulness that momentarily holds back the noise of the city and offers in its place a kind of purposeful quiet.

“It’s changed my life. It’s so peaceful and beautiful being out here. It’s really an oasis,” says Altshuler, who has been playing three times a week since he retired five years ago. “I plan my whole week around the bowling.”