Tucked away in the northwest
corner of Woodland
Park, just off
Aurora is an overlooked gem of a park.
It's a place
where you can learn
the ins and outs of croquet
have a go with lawn bowling,
or try your hand at bocce.
Don't be short, Mario.
It's the Woodland Park Lawn Bowling.
Bocce and Croquet Club.
And it all started back in 1940
with the opening of a lawn bowling club.
The club flourished for decades,
but then
popularity waned about 20 years ago.
Lawn bowling
just sort of falling off a little bit.
And they were having trouble
with membership numbers.
And meanwhile croquet was interested in
expanding and bocce
was looking for a home in the city.
And so now we're doing pretty good.
We've got probably around 130
total members.
A lot of those are Boccia players.
And then we have a
smaller cadre
of croquet and lawn bowlers.
We have a lease agreement with the city
and we provide public access hours,
We provide the facility
for rentals and other activities.
Throughout the
summer, there
are evening open houses
in all three sports.
Newcomers are invited to come out,
take a lesson, and learn a new game.
Tonight, it's croquet.
When most people think of croquet,
they think of the casual backyard game.
But the competitive version of croquet
is much different.
It's played on smooth greens with one
stake in the center
and six narrow
wickets making it
a game of both precision and strategy.
You could do what we call
promoting a ball.
What you're doing
is putting the ball
you hit in a better position Excellent.
That's exactly it.
People who are interested in continuing
can become members,
play more often
and improve their technique.
If you're intimidated
by the size of that wicket,
you might want to try rolling a
ball instead of striking it.
In lawn bowling, the
balls are called bowls.
And just to make it interesting,
they're not completely round.
There are a bias bowl,
which means that they're shaped
a little bit different on each side.
So the bowl can curl and break
as it hunts down
the target ball called the jack.
Each person has four bowls
And you deliver them alternately.
You keep alternating until
all four bowls for each
person are delivered.
and then you go down and you figure out
who's the closest one to the jack balls,
and they get the first point
60 and a half.
I really like the pace of play.
It's not like a super strenuous game,
but it's also very strategic.
It's all about your consistency
The third lawn
sport at the club, bocce,
is one of the oldest in the world.
And said to be
the third
most popular
sport worldwide after soccer and golf
We are Lower Woodland bocce club.
League night on Mondays,
we play
June, July and August
is our league night.
Bocce and lawn bowling
have a few things in common.
One being that
they both have a little ball
that all the big balls want to be around.
In bocce, it's called the Pallino
I throw the pallino out,
I throw my ball out,
and then the competition or my competitor
throws their ball out
until they get closer than mine
to the pallino.
If they do that, then it's my turn
Balls are
thrown underhand,
but in a variety of ways.
You can gently lag it,
you can bank it
or you can do whatever this is.
Oh, stop, stop, stop.
After each round the team
with the bocce
ball closest to the pallino
receives points
What's so appealing about this
ancient sport?
Anybody can play.
Our mom played till she was about 85
and so literally anybody could play.
Couldn't be more fun.
I got my 12 year
old son comes out and plays
with us as well.
We come every week
and we meet great people
who are really helpful
and teaching us and getting us, like,
excited about the game.
Yeah, it's a great time.
We love it.
We won. We're winners.
All the way
With such
a buffet of great games
available at the club
where should you begin?
Croquet is definitely the game.
Lawn bowling, I think, is
the more challenging.
Bocce is damn good.
I just love a ball rolling on
green ground in the sun
watched City Stream
Tuesday nights at seven
on the Seattle Channel
or find us anytime online
at Seattle Channel. Georgie.