Mental Toughness

You’re eight shots ahead, your opponent is clearly demoralised. Yet within four ends they’ve caught up, are 17-16 ahead and get a four on the next end to win.

What happened?

What happened was that you empathised so much with their feelings of demoralisation that you eased up and let your empathy for their despair offer them the human gift of comfort.

In other words, you didn’t want to see them suffer.

Well, not all of you. The bowler in you still wanted to win the match. But the human being couldn’t bear the guilt of deliberately inflicting suffering on another human being.

What mental toughness in bowls really means

Mental toughness in bowls isn’t about being unkind. It’s about keeping your attention on the job until the last bowl has stopped. You can be the friendliest player in the club and still play every end as if the score were level. Shake hands warmly at the end; until then, play the game.

Here are five ways to do it.

1. Play the bowl, not the scoreboard

The moment you start thinking “I’m eight up”, you’ve stopped thinking about line and length. The score looks after itself if each delivery gets your full attention. Before you step onto the mat, ask yourself one question only: what does this bowl need to do?

2. Keep the same routine, ahead or behind

Good bowlers do the same things before every delivery: the same look at the head, the same grip, the same breath, the same step onto the mat. A steady routine stops you rushing when you’re behind and coasting when you’re ahead. It’s part of a sound lawn bowls delivery.

3. Don’t change what’s working

When you’re well ahead, it’s tempting to try something clever, or to play safe. Both are a change of plan. Keep playing the shots, the length and the hand that built your lead.

4. Reset after a bad end

Everyone drops a four sometimes. The damage comes when that end follows you onto the next one. Walk to the other end, take a breath, and treat the next end as a new game. One bad end only becomes four bad ends if you let it.

5. Practise under pressure

Mental toughness in bowls can be practised like any other skill. Play practice games with a score and something riding on it, not just roll-ups. Our Double Bubble practice drill is a good place to start, because every bowl counts and you have to keep thinking.

Confidence in your equipment helps too: if your bowls give you niggling doubts, read What’s love got to do with it?

And off the green…

Now imagine this: as the owner of an online bowls store, you see a competitor going out of business and running a closing down sale. He’s offering 20% off everything in his web store until all his stock is sold.

Yet you know that even after applying the 20%, customers would get a better deal if they bought the same gear from your web shop – which isn’t closing down! So do you go out there and press home Bush Hill Bowls’ advantage, flooding social media and your mailing lists with the facts of the matter?

Or does your humanity get the better of your business instinct, and you end up making your point in an obscure blog somewhere where no-one will read it?

For more on the mental side of sport, see mental toughness in sports psychology.

This post was first published on 21 July 2015. Last updated 2 October 2026.