You'll be bowled over

Editor's note: Summer is playtime, and many of the games people play around Boston are steeped in cultural and neighborhood tradition. Over the coming weeks, we'll look at some of the trademark local things we do when the days are long and temps are high.

"It's just like golf," Con O'Callaghan says, just before he cocks his arm back and fires a steel ball, windmill-style, down a narrow path deep inside the Stony Brook Reservation in Hyde Park.

As the ball, known as a "bowl," caroms down the path, hitting rocks and cracks and very nearly a spectator or two -- unlike in golf, the gallery stands in the middle of the path of the shot -- O'Callaghan explains the complex rules of the game.

"The winner is whoever covers the course in the least amount of throws," he says in his sing-songy Irish brogue. "And that's all there is to it."

It's called Irish road bowling, and it's been a tradition on the Emerald Isle -- particularly in the counties of Cork and Armagh -- for more than 400 years. About a dozen years ago, it made its Boston debut when a couple of lads from the old country got together to "throw each other" in the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain.

The course at Stony Brook, where they moved last year because it's less crowded than the Arboretum, is about a mile long and very windy and rolling, which makes the game as much about strategy and finesse as it is about pure distance.

"What's going on down the right-hand side?" O'Callaghan calls to Brendan Fleming , who is 50 yards ahead acting as something of a caddy. O'Callaghan is facing an S-curve, and he's hoping to split the apexes and "get sight," so that his next throw can be a straight shot.

"Right about here, Connie," Fleming yells back, as he drops a clump of grass on the road -- known as a "sop" -- to give O'Callaghan a target.

O'Callaghan, a 54-year-old who lives in Dedham, walks back from the line, or mark, and then takes eight quick stutter steps forward before releasing the bowl with such force that his feet leave the ground. (O'Callaghan, who is from Cork, uses the Southern style throw, which looks a bit like the quick-cock windmill-motion used in fast-pitch softball; the Northern style, used in County Armagh, is more like the single, smooth motion used in traditional bowling.)

The shot clears both corners and barrels into the woods, where it is retrieved and brought back to the closest corresponding spot on the road . (A throw must hit the road at least once, or it's considered a "dead ball ," and the thrower loses a shot.)

O'Callaghan looks pleased when he sees the spot for his next mark.

"Things are going well. They're going my way."

Road bowling is a surprisingly interactive spectator sport for a game that involves a 28 -ounce steel ball also known as a bullet. About the size of a billiard ball but nearly five times as heavy, the bowl can and will take odd bounces as it rockets down the road. To be a spectator, you've got to pay attention and follow the golden rule: "Keep your eye on the ball." (Margaret O'Callaghan , chairwoman for the Boston crew, very nearly took one on the ankle when she violated this rule to look at a frog.)

There are about 50 bowlers in the Boston group, and on Wednesday night -- the hottest of the year so far -- a dozen walked along with the night's competitors, rooting them on and, perhaps most importantly, helping to find the rust-colored balls when they careened through piles of dead leaves.

The biggest difference, the players say, between the Irish form of the game and the American form -- which is also played in New York and Ireland, W.Va. -- is the betting. In Ireland, the players would be surrounded by people wagering on everything from the final score of the match to the length of the next throw.

In the United States, "the loser buys the first round," O'Callaghan says.

That's good news for O'Callaghan. On this night, he defeats Roger Riordan by two shots, but it's just a pickup match. The real action begins next week, when Riordan and O'Callaghan -- both former All-Ireland champions -- compete with players from New York and West Virginia for the US berth in the prestigious All-Ireland Road Bowling Championship. ( They'll play on a wider course at Wampatuck State Park in Hingham).

Still, it's off to the pub. Riordan's got a debt to settle.

Billy Baker can be reached at ciweek@globe.com.