Garden Bowls within the US: The Sport, the Inexperienced, and the Individuals Behind the 2026 US Open

Most Individuals have by no means heard of garden bowls, however for 1000’s of gamers throughout the nation and world wide, it’s a strategic sport constructed round a wonderfully maintained patch of grass or a man-made carpet.

From November 1-7, 2026, Bowls USA will host the US Open in Solar Metropolis, Solar Metropolis West, and Shock, Arizona, drawing practically 300 garden bowls opponents from 10 nations.

LawnStarter spoke with 4 of this 12 months’s gamers to be taught why they benefit from the sport and the way groundskeepers handle pure (and synthetic) greens in Arizona’s difficult circumstances.

What Is Garden Bowls?

Garden bowls, additionally known as “garden bowling,” is a precision sport through which gamers roll resin balls (known as bowls) throughout a enjoying area known as the inexperienced.

The aim: The item is to land the bowls as shut as doable to a small white or yellow goal ball, known as the “jack.”

The ball: Not like a bowling ball, a bowl is intentionally imbalanced, so it curves because it slows. This attribute, known as “bias,” separates garden bowls from related garden video games like bocce or pétanque. Bowls are asymmetrical and never fairly spherical; they arrive in various sizes, designs, weights, biases, and colours.

The inexperienced: Garden bowls is performed on a flat grass floor, known as the “inexperienced.” The inexperienced is 120 ft lengthy and divided into parallel strips, known as rinks, every 14 ft broad. These rinks permit a number of video games to be performed concurrently. To catch stray balls, the inexperienced is surrounded by a sand-filled ditch.

Matches embody 2-8 gamers:

• Singles: 1 participant per aspect
• Pairs: 2 gamers per aspect
• Triples: 3 gamers per aspect
• Fours: 4 gamers per aspect

The 2026 US Open: What to Know

The US Open is open to all World Bowls affiliate members and billed as Bowls USA‘s premier occasion, drawing a whole lot of opponents from the U.S. and overseas.
Dates	Sunday, Nov. 1 – Saturday, Nov. 7, 2026: Verify the US Open webpage for match occasions and venues, in addition to livestream hyperlinks.
Location	Solar Metropolis, Arizona Solar Metropolis West, Arizona The Grand in Shock, Arizona
Match Kind (Males’s and Girls’s)	Singles Pairs Fours
The best way to Watch	Watch the finals through livestream on the Bowls USA Facebook web page. Movies for every finals match can even be revealed on Bowls USA’s YouTube channel on the finish of the day.

Meet the Gamers

Garden bowls isn’t solely about technique and bodily train: It’s additionally about group, socializing, and having enjoyable. There are 290 opponents taking part within the US Open this 12 months. We spoke with 4 of them. 

Anne Nunes: 2025 Nationwide Champion – Girls’s Singles

● Competed within the World Bowls Champion of Champions 7 occasions ● Bronze on the 2022 World Bowls Champion of Champions ● Gold on the 2023 World Bowls Champion of Champions ● Silver on the 2024 World Bowls Champion of Champions ● Gained the Nationwide Championships for the thirteenth time in 2026

Anne Nunes’s father launched her to garden bowls when she was 27 years outdated. “Throughout a lunch break, he had me roll some bowls at Laguna Seashore, and I did fairly properly. Earlier than I knew it, I used to be hooked!” she says. 

Now 57, Nunes has been enjoying for the previous 30 years.

After solely her first 12 months of garden bowling, California native Nunes was requested to hitch Workforce USA. “I used to be named to a workforce that was going to play towards Canada on the 1998 North American Problem, and I’ve been on Workforce USA ever since,” she says.

Nunes enjoys the game’s mixture of bodily and psychological challenges. “It’s been in comparison with enjoying chess on the inexperienced – anticipating what shot your opponent goes to play earlier than they play it.”

For Nunes, it’s not simply in regards to the competitors, however the garden bowls group, as properly. “Even with nationwide or worldwide titles, the most effective a part of this sport is the friendships made on the native bowls golf equipment, across the U.S., and all around the world,” she says.

Manya Urane: Winner of 2025 US Open Girls’s Pairs

● Gold in 2025 US Open Girls’s Pairs ● Silver in 2025 US Open Girls’s Fours ●Certified twice for the Nationwide Championships  ● Girls’s Bowler of the Event within the 2025 US Open

Manya Urane, a member of the Long Beach Lawn Bowling Club, has been bowling for 4.5 years. When she isn’t bowling, she splits her time between Lengthy Seashore, California, and San Antonio, Texas.

She began enjoying garden bowls after a dinner dialog when a pal requested if she’d wish to attempt free group classes. Urane started bowling on the membership 2 days per week, and her curiosity in garden bowls stored rising. “It’s addictive,” she says. 

The problem and competitors of garden bowls is what Urane loves in regards to the sport. “Whereas I loved social bowling on the membership, it was once I started to compete in tournaments that the game actually turned fascinating to me.

“The event group is a whole lot of enjoyable, with stiff competitors and a way of belonging,” she says. “It’s opened up a world of friendships.”

Right here’s what Urane would inform those that haven’t tried garden bowls: “Give it a attempt – classes are free.” And better of all: “It’s FUN!” 

Sadri Jazayeri: Winner of the 2025 US Open Males’s Pairs

● Winner of the 2025 US Open Males’s Pairs ● Silver within the 2025 US Open Males’s Fours ● Males’s Bowler of the Event within the 2025 US Open

Sadri Jazayeri, 49, from Rancho Santa Margarita, California, performs together with his residence membership, the Laguna Beach Lawn Bowling Club. He started enjoying in July 2023, when his good pal Charlie Herbert launched him to the game. 

“I used to be hooked instantly,” he says.

The strategic challenges of garden bowls drew Jazayeri to the game: “It’s by no means the identical expertise due to the altering setting, such because the climate, the greens, and so forth.”

The social facet is one other a part of what Jazayeri loves in regards to the sport: “You get to be outside and benefit from the expertise with nice folks.  The competitors is fierce, however the camaraderie is simply as robust,” he says. 

Right here’s his recommendation for newcomers: “Give it an opportunity.  It’s much more enjoyable than it appears, and it might probably positively be an ideal train or out of doors exercise so as to add to anybody’s life-style.

“This sport has modified my life for the higher,” he says. 

Scottie Marzonie: Winner of the 2025 US Open Fours

● Winner: 2023 U.S. Nationals Pairs ● Winner: 2025 Southwest Division Open Singles ● Winner: 2025 US Open Fours

California-based Scottie Marzonie, a proud member of Workforce USA,  has traveled the world to compete in worldwide garden bowls tournaments.

Marzonie first found garden bowls in 2010 on a father-son journey when his dad performed within the US Open. After that occasion, Marzonie purchased all of the gear wanted for garden bowling and determined to attempt it himself. 

The game shortly turned a household affair: Marzonie went on to compete in Pairs together with his father in 3 US Open tournaments. “We had a blast,” Marzonie says.  “It was a good way to reconnect with my dad, and it was such a enjoyable sport.”

Garden bowls turned the subsequent pure entry in Marzonie’s sports activities profession. Rising up, he performed baseball, soccer, and basketball, and later coached as properly. I’m “very aggressive by nature,” he says.

Marzonie’s fantasy buster: “After I began, it was thought-about an outdated man’s sport, however on the elite ranges, it’s nonetheless a younger man’s sport. You stroll two miles each sport and we play three, 4 video games a day in tournaments,” he says. 

Exterior of competitors, “Anyone can play, from 4 to 94, even 104,” he says. “We’ve received a man who nonetheless bowls, and he’s nonetheless good. So the misunderstanding is folks making an attempt to label it in some way.” 

What It Takes to Construct a Championship Inexperienced

“Sustaining a bowling inexperienced requires far more precision and uniformity than a typical residential garden,” says Scott Jones, grasp garden bowls groundskeeper at Solar Metropolis, Arizona. “The entire goal is to have an efficient inexperienced, the place the bowls roll constantly within the route they’re meant to go.”

Not like a golf course, “we don’t need it to be fairly and shiny inexperienced,” says Marzonie. “We wish it to be minimize, have robust roots, and be degree and quick.”

Any dip, rise, or extreme thatch throws off a shot. That calls for extra exact upkeep than residential lawns and golf greens. 

“Even a small flaw or variation within the floor can change the trail of a bowl. It’s a must to take note of the main points and ensure your entire enjoying floor is constant,” Jones says.

Bowling greens require intensive garden upkeep:

• Frequent mowing. Bowling greens are mowed at 1/8 inch tall, so that they require mowing a number of occasions per week. “We use specialised mowers (with rollers) designed to chop the grass very quick and keep a constant floor,” Jones says.
• Common dethatching and aeration. Thatch should be minimized for a high quality enjoying floor. As well as, aeration “encourages deeper root development and helps create stronger turf that may higher face up to common foot site visitors,” Jones says.
• Disciplined irrigation. Water is essential for wholesome development and restoration. “In Arizona, you need to pay shut consideration to the grass and ensure it will get the moisture it must deal with the warmth and proceed rising,”  Jones says. “After I discover a struggling or dry spot, I alter the watering to assist it get well.”
• Sensible fertilization. An excessive amount of nitrogen can encourage thatch, however not sufficient, and the grass doesn’t get well properly from foot site visitors. Resilience “begins with constructing a powerful root system,” Jones says. “After getting a wholesome basis, the grass is healthier outfitted to carry as much as the calls for of the game.”

It’s additionally essential for gamers to put on flat-soled sneakers to guard the inexperienced. Seeds can get caught in grooved sneakers, which unfold undesirable weeds onto the enjoying area.

See Associated: The best way to Dethatch Your Garden (Plus When to Rent a Professional)

The Garden Bowling Greens within the US Open

This 12 months, the 2026 US Open will likely be performed at 3 completely different venues. Right here’s a fast have a look at the three bowling greens:

Solar Metropolis and Solar Metropolis West

“We selected Solar Metropolis and Solar Metropolis West as a result of they’re iconic venues with wonderful services and greens, and we have now used them for the previous 2 years for this occasion,” says Veronica Sum, Bowls USA speedy previous president and chair and 2026 event director for the US Open. 

“Arizona is taken into account the house of the best greens in (the) U.S.A.,” she says.

“We use TifTurf Bermudagrass at Solar Metropolis,” Jones says. “We mow the greens each different day to roughly 0.120 inches.” The aim is to maintain grass quick and uniform sufficient to make it straightforward for balls to roll with out damaging the turf.

The Grand

The Grand’s synthetic turf bowling inexperienced requires common consideration and upkeep, too.

“We don’t have the mowing, irrigation, fertilizing, overseeding, and different upkeep that will include preserving a pure grass garden bowling inexperienced in good enjoying situation year-round,” says Jamie Svoboda, services upkeep director at The Grand in Shock, Arizona. 

However even synthetic greens want fixed upkeep, particularly in powerful climates.

Essentially the most difficult a part of sustaining the synthetic turf on the Grand is preserving the floor clear and in good situation, Svoboda says, which implies always clearing particles and guaranteeing correct drainage.

As well as, The Grand’s bowling inexperienced routinely faces Arizona’s powerful circumstances, together with excessive warmth and UV publicity, mud, wind and particles, and monsoon storms, he says.

“We additionally monitor the situation of the turf, seams, edges, and surrounding areas,” Svoboda says. “With any leisure floor, we need to catch small upkeep points earlier than they turn into bigger repairs.”

See Associated: When and The best way to Plant Winter Grass in Arizona

Takeaways for Residence Garden Care

You’ll by no means want tournament-grade precision in your yard, however the core ideas behind caring for grass apply at any scale, together with:

• Mow correctly: Trim your garden to the best mowing top in your turf grass sort, comply with the one-third rule, and mow usually through the lively rising season. “I’d additionally inform owners to maintain their mower blades sharp. That makes a distinction in getting a clear minimize,” Jones advises. 
• Aeration: Most lawns must be aerated yearly. Lawns that endure heavy foot site visitors or have compacted soil might must be aerated as incessantly as twice a 12 months.
• Correct irrigation: Underwatering can result in brown grass, however overwatering your garden invitations pests, fungal development, or garden illness. 
• Fertilize to spice up development: Throughout your garden’s lively rising season, including fertilizer may give your grass the increase it wants. Discover out when to fertilize your garden.

See Associated: The best way to Aerate Your Garden: A Full Information

The best way to Get Concerned

“Garden bowls is the BEST sport!” Nunes says. “It’s enjoyable, might be difficult, and it’s social. It truly is a sport for everybody.”

New to the game? Bowls USA maintains a listing connecting gamers to native golf equipment throughout the nation, so use their club locator to search out one close to you.  Bowls USA has over 3,300 members and greater than 80 golf equipment that cater to members of all ages, not solely retirees. 

Each sport has its personal lingo. Some widespread and colourful  phrases heard at garden bowling matches embody:

• “Quick inexperienced,” referring to a floor which provides little resistance to the progress of the bowl
• “Toucher,” a bowl which throughout its course has touched the jack
• “Wick off,” referring to a bowl which comes into angled contact with one other bowl, thus inflicting the course of the transferring bowl to be altered.”

“Should you catch the bug, you’ll have a sport for all times,” says Marzonie. “That’s type of a motto of garden bowls: One thing you could play ceaselessly. So go on the market and catch the bug.”

Major Picture: Garden bowling bowls and a jack ball on the grass. Serge / Adobe Inventory