It's a sport that has been around for thousands of years, but you may have been "today years old" when you first heard about it. Lawn bowling—are you familiar?
I wasn’t, but we received a message from David Semrow asking if we were going to cover the National Lawn Bowling Championship at Lake Park.
Watch: Lawn bowling headed to Milwaukee.
I went to check it out Tuesday as players from Wisconsin, Arizona, California, and Florida competed on day one. To simply explain how the game works: there’s a small white ball on the green, and you roll a larger ball, hoping to get as close to the white ball as possible.
President of the Central Division Jim Cavender told me the sport is similar to bocce. He’s been playing for 45 years.
His son has also caught the "lawn bowling bug" and is competing this week. I just had to know how many times people ask Jim, "What is lawn bowling?"
“Oh my gosh, I've gotten it all. Me and a friend were on the airplane explaining the game as we were flying out to California to a tournament. And at the end, I think a stewardess asked, ‘So how do they get that many lawns to mow in the city of Los Angeles?’ I said, ‘No, it’s not lawn mowing, it’s lawn bowling," Cavender said.
Tournament Director and competitor Anna Witt stumbled upon the game totally by accident.
"I was wandering around, came across Lake Park, came across all of these old people dressed up in white playing some game I'd never seen before. I got close to the fence and somebody noticed me and they're like 'hi, do you want to learn how to play? We give free lessons,'" Witt said.
It has been 18 years since the national games have been played in Milwaukee. You can stop by Lake Park to watch throughout the day today until Friday. The winner will go to "Worlds," which are played in places like Australia and Scotland, where the sport is really popular.
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