How to Film & Analyse Your Lawn Bowls Delivery With Your Smartphone

What you feel you are doing on the mat and what your body is actually doing are rarely the same thing. Over years of coaching club bowlers, I have lost count of how many players swore they were stepping straight down their aiming line—until a 10-second smartphone clip showed their lead foot stepping four inches across their body.

You do not need expensive motion-capture sensors to audit your delivery. Every modern iPhone or Android phone shoots high-definition slow-motion video that can expose a wobble, a dumped release, or a rushed backswing in minutes. In this guide, I will walk you through the two camera angles to film on your next roll-up, the 5-checkpoint frame audit, and how to use a free AI coaching prompt to turn your observations into a targeted fix.

Step 1: The Two Essential Camera Angles (And How to Set Up Solo)

You don't even need a tripod—propping your phone against your bowls bag or a water bottle on the bank works perfectly. Switch your camera to Slow-Motion (120fps or 240fps) or 60fps HD video and record two bowls from each of these positions:

Angle A: Down-the-Line View (Fixes Line & Aiming Faults)

• Where to place the phone: Place your phone on the bank directly behind the centre of the mat, pointing straight out toward your shoulder/aiming point (not toward the jack).
• What it reveals: Anchor foot alignment, hip and shoulder rotation, whether your backswing loops behind your back or flares outside your hip, and whether your step tracks straight down the delivery line.

Angle B: Side-On View (Fixes Weight Control & Dumping)

• Where to place the phone: Place the phone 3 metres to the side of the mat (on your bowling-arm side), perpendicular to your delivery stride, at roughly knee-to-waist height.
• What it reveals: Backswing height, step-to-swing timing, knee bend depth, and the exact height at which the bowl leaves your fingers.

Step 2: The 5-Checkpoint Frame-by-Frame Audit

Once you have filmed four deliveries, scrub through the clip slowly using your phone's video slider (or a free app from our Best Lawn Bowls Coaching Apps Roundup) and pause at these five keyframes:

1. Checkpoint 1 — The Set Stance (Before the Backswing): Look at your Down-the-Line clip. Are your anchor foot, hips, and shoulders squared toward your aiming point, or are your feet pointing at the jack while your arm tries to push the bowl out wide? (See our Best Lawn Bowls Stance Guide for setup checks.)
2. Checkpoint 2 — Top of the Backswing: Look at your Side-On clip. Does your backswing reach a smooth, repeatable height matching the green speed, or are you snatching the bowl back abruptly?
3. Checkpoint 3 — Heel Strike & Timing: As your lead heel touches the turf, where is the bowl? In a balanced pendulum delivery, the bowl should be passing down through the vertical line of your back hip just as your front foot plants. If the bowl is already out in front of your knee before your foot lands, you will almost certainly dump the wood.
4. Checkpoint 4 — The Release Point (The Grass-Skim Check): Pause on the exact frame the bowl leaves your fingertips. Is the base of the bowl within 1 inch of the grass, or are you releasing at shin height with a stiff back knee? If you hear a thud, review our guide on How to Stop Dumping Your Lawn Bowl.
5. Checkpoint 5 — Follow-Through & Balance: Hold the video for one full second after release. Does your bowling hand track smoothly through toward your aiming line with your head still, or do you pop upright immediately to watch the bowl?

Step 3: Run Your Findings Through an AI Coaching Prompt

Once you spot which of the five checkpoints looks off—or if you upload two still screenshots from your Side-On and Down-the-Line clips directly into ChatGPT—use the prompt below to build a corrective drill routine:

Step 4: Lock In the Fix With Structured Drills

Spotting a delivery hitch on camera is half the battle; grooving the new movement pattern takes focused repetition without worrying about match scores. After running your video audit:

• Read our 5 Common Lawn Bowls Delivery Faults and Ultimate Guide to Weight Control to understand the biomechanics in detail.
• Take the Jack High Bowls Downloadable Drill Pack out to your next solo roll-up to test whether your adjusted release tightened your draw cluster.
• Explore more AI prompts and tools on our AI Lawn Bowls Coaching Hub.