Gear

What this page is not

There are no affiliate links on this page right now. There's no "top 10 bowls of 2026" list, and no star ratings for products I haven't rolled.

That's deliberate. Gear pages are where blogs in small sports go to die: someone works out that a commission on a $700 set of bowls is real money, and within a month the site is recommending whatever pays best. You can spot those pages instantly — they review eight products, love all eight, and never once mention a downside.

If affiliate links appear here later, two rules hold:

1. Nothing gets recommended that hasn't been used. A commission is not a reason to rank something first.
2. Every affiliate link is marked as one, inline, right where you'd click it — not disclosed in small print at the bottom.

Until then, what follows is how to make the decisions, not what to buy.

Bowls: the only decision that really matters

Size, and then weight. Everything else is a distant third.

The size is right when you can hold the bowl securely without gripping it. If your forearm is working before you've even moved, the bowl is too big, and it will cost you in tension, in release, and in wobble.

The full version of this — the span test, the drop test, the weight trade-off, bias models, and the stamp check that catches people out buying second-hand — is in Choosing your first set of bowls.

Two things worth repeating here because they cost people the most money:

• Check the stamp before buying anything second-hand. Competitions require a current one, requirements differ by association and they do change. A cheap set you can't use in pennant isn't a bargain.
• There is no prize for holding a big bowl. Plenty of good bowlers drop a size in their sixties and immediately get better.

Shoes: underrated, and cheap to get right

Your delivery is a balance problem. A flat, grippy, properly fitting bowls shoe removes a variable; anything that lets your foot roll is quietly costing you line.

What matters, in order: flat sole (required by most clubs anyway), fits snugly with no heel lift, comfortable for four hours rather than for the ten minutes you spent trying them on.

What doesn't matter: the brand, the colour, and whether it's this season's model.

The cheap things that earn their money

• A measure. You'll use it more often than you expect, and borrowing one every end gets old fast.
• A grip aid for humid days — a slipping bowl ruins otherwise good deliveries.
• A stopwatch. Your phone is fine. It's the only way to actually know what the green is doing rather than guessing. See Reading a green.
• A hat that stays on in wind. Squinting for three hours degrades your line more than people admit.

What you can skip

Most bowls-branded accessories. A drink bottle is a drink bottle, and a branded one is a drink bottle that cost more.

Also skip anything sold on the promise that it will fix your delivery. Nothing you can buy will do that. The gear list above just removes excuses — the delivery is still yours to sort out, which is what the rest of this site is about.