Locked away in Drakes Pride Lawn Bowls Accessories and Test Centre, the table is one of four testing tables in Australia and check more than 1000 bowls per month from Australia and overseas.

Drakes Pride’s Don Sherman jnr said the testing table was a World Bowls Board-declared testing tool to ensure bowls were the correct weight and lie for play.

“All bowls need to be sent to a licensed tester, it’s the only way they can be tested,’’ Sherman said.

”Each tester in the world is given a master bowl by the World Bowls Board, which no individual bowl can draw less than.

“We run down the master bowl first and then the other four bowls that we’re testing and they all must draw to at least the master bowl - they can’t draw less than it.

“They must also draw as a set and must fall within a five-centimetre radius of the last bowl.’’

Sherman said the table at Drakes Pride in Nolan Street, Bendigo, drew thousands of bowls for testing from a range of locations.

“We get bowls sent to us to be tested from all over the place and we test up to 1000 bowls a month.

“We even get some from overseas because there is not a test table in South Africa or New Zealand and Hong Kong.

“There are also testing tables in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.’’

Drakes Pride can expect an influx of bowls in the coming weeks, with Bendigo set to take the bowls season into full swing.

“We’ve had a fair bit on recently, we’ve had the Women’s States Finals the other week, we’ve got the Australian Open Qualifying this week and in another month we’ve got Country Week, so we’ll be working extended hours for all of those events.’’