Lawn Bowling Going Strong After 12 Years

What do Sir Francis Drake, George Washington and Walt Disney have in common?

All of them were lawn bowlers.

Lawn bowling, of course, isn’t a major pastime nowadays. In Ventura County, there is only one lawn bowling green, at Wilson Park in Oxnard.

But after 12 years, the Oxnard-Joslyn Lawn Bowls Club is still going strong. One of 36 clubs in the southwest division of organized lawn bowling, it claims 75 members.

Those members are dedicated to the sedate game with its formal, almost antiquated appeal.

Aficionados such as Marilyn Taschek, 68, say that although lawn bowling has a good deal in common with alley bowling and boccie, it involves more strategy than the other two games.

“You have to read the green,” Rosalie Hutton said. “You have to know if it’s wet or dry. It all makes a difference.”

The game is like regular alley bowling. Sort of. The object is to roll the bowls as close as possible to the target, a white ball called a jack. Players are allowed to hit other players’ bowls--a strategy called wicking--in order to move their own closer to the jack.

No talking is allowed; only hand signals are used to communicate across the green. Players must wear all white at tournaments, and shorts are required to be a certain length to the knee.

Edith Dowsing, one of the charter members of the club, said she heard about it almost by accident. “A doctor told me they were opening a bowling green, but no one knew what it was,” she said. “I almost fell out of my chair. I hadn’t bowled in 15 years.”

Wilson Senior Center is at 350 N. C St. in Oxnard. Lawn bowling hours are 9:30 a.m. to noon Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Lessons are free.

For information, call 385-8034.