You would be hard-pressed to find a Palo Alto resident who hasn’t passed the irregularly shaped block off Embarcadero Road, which shares borders with Palo Alto’s well-known Gamble Garden. The small wood fence and perfectly flat green grass make for an unmissable, peculiar site among the houses and garden that surround it. Yet, it would be even harder to find a resident familiar with the game played on the club green.
Walking into the plot, groups of people roll colorful oval-shaped objects, aiming for a small white sphere, playing a game called Bowls.
The Palo Alto Lawn Bowls Club provides a space for Palo Alto residents to play the game of bowls, also known as ‘Lawn Bowling.’ Bowls is a sport where players try to roll their ball as close as possible to a smaller white ball, called a jack. The weight imbalance of the balls, also known as bowls, creates hard to predict curves in the ball’s travel, turning the game into a competitive match.
According to Frank Matyskiela, head coach of the club, the beginning of this year marked the club’s 90th anniversary, founded in 1934. Since then, the club has remained much the same, apart from renovations of the clubhouse.
The City of Palo Alto has owned the property since its inception.
“The city owns the whole property, and we lease it from them and pay rent on that lease,” Matyskiela said. “It’s an old property the city is invested in.”
Currently, the club has 86 members. However, Matyskiela expects that number to increase to over 100 by the end of this year.
Despite the small number of people who visit this nature haven, for a select group of people, it’s a part of their daily routine.
“It [lawn bowling] is a low aerobic sport, and it’s social but competitive and you meet nice people,” Matyskiela said. “Most of the people are our age 60, 70. I’m 83, this helps me keep up.”
Rob, 63, who asked to be refered to by only his first name, is a member of PALBC, he has visited the club three times a week for around a year.
Rob started his lawn bowling adventures in his home country, South Africa, and continues his passion in Palo Alto.
Rob has his own specially made Bowls from South Africa with the ‘SA’ emblem. He mentioned that the game in South Africa was a different culture because there was much more alcohol involved, but he can appreciate the cultural differences.
“[Lawn bowling is] a highly skilled game, and it actually takes a while to master the skill,” Rob said. “It has a lot of mental concentration and it’s social and it’s nice to be outside.”
In addition to recreational bowling, PALBC hosts numerous intra-club bowling tournaments, invitationals and social events throughout the year, open to all members.
Matyskiela invites all Palo Alto residents to attend one of the drop-in lessons offered every Sunday at 1:30 p.m., regardless of their skill level, and check out the extensive collection of books on the sport of lawn bowling.
