Bowls (also lawn bowls, variants include flat-green bowls and crown-green bowls) is a sport in which the objective is to roll biased balls so that they stop close to a smaller ball called a "jack" or "kitty". It is played on a pitch which may be flat (for "flat-green bowls") or convex or uneven (for "crown-green bowls"). It is normally played outdoors although there are some indoor venues and the surface is either natural grass, artificial turf, or cotula (in New Zealand).
It is popular in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, Hong Kong and parts of the United States and more recently in Japan. It belongs to the boules game family and is related to bocce and pétanque.
Robert Weale (born in Hereford on 3 April 1963) is a Welsh Bowls player. Weale is originally from Presteigne and was educated at John Beddoes School, but now lives in Hereford, Herefordshire.
Weale made his international debut in 1982. He was the youngest competitor in the world outdoor championships in Aberdeen in 1984.
Weale won the Welsh indoor singles title in February 2005. By August, he added the Welsh outdoor singles title, created a record by becoming the only man to hold both titles simultaneously. He also skipped the Weale family quartet to the Welsh outdoor fours title, on five occasions.
Weale's career-best performance came in January 2000, when he won the world indoor singles title at Potters. This event also made the news because a waitress at the venue named Tracy Seargent ran naked along the length of the bowling green during an earlier televised match between David Gourlay & Les Saunders. Just a few months later, Weale won the fours world outdoor title, in April 2000. In the opening event of the current WBT season, Robert reached the final of the International Open for the first time.