"This book is a landmark in the philosophy of bowls and mindful performance — bridging the art of the game with the quiet discipline of the mind, where precision becomes poetry."
— Dr. Ray Martin, D.Litt. et Phil. (UNISA), SNHS Dip. (Sports Psychology, London)

The Art of the Green invites the bowler to see the game anew — as a living discipline of precision, rhythm, and awareness. Through parallels with archery, Coach Watha reveals how focus, breath, and alignment transform not only the bowl's path but the bowler's inner state.

Each chapter blends technical clarity with reflective insight, guiding the reader to discover calm in the act of delivery and stillness in the pursuit of accuracy. From stance to strategy, from rhythm to resilience, this is both a coaching manual and a meditation on performance itself.

True mastery, Coach Watha suggests, can never be built on skill alone. Excellence in any field grows from a holistic harmony of body, mind, and soul. It is this balance that steadies the hand, sharpens awareness, and gives meaning to the motion of the game.

Johann van der Wath is a former SA district player himself, serves on the Bowls South Africa National Coaching Committee and is known in the sporting community as Coach Watha – a lawn bowls coach whose work unites structure with spirit. As a district and academy coach, technical official, provincial coach developer, greenkeeper, and mentor within Bowls South Africa and the South African Sport Coaching Association, he helps players find balance between technical mastery and inner calm.

The same quiet care for structure, language, and rhythm that Johann learned as an architect and occasional poet, he now brings to his coaching — to line, weight, and movement on the green. His studies in the sport itself, sport psychology, coaching science, and performance philosophy shape a practice where craft becomes contemplation, and where every bowl is, quite simply, a verse in motion.

Every bowl is an arrow loosed into silence. Mastery — in both life and sport — begins in balance: between bias and stillness, between motion and meaning, between structure and calm. At the still point, mastery begins. I trust the insight I share in this book will take you to your still point. — Coach Watha.

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