Pétanque in the Park: Tournament for French Game at Bellevue Downtown Park Sunday

If you’ve ever strolled through on a Sunday afternoon and wondered what people were playing on the east garden pathway, wonder no more.

The game is pétanque, a French lawn game that looks like a cross between lawn bowling and shuffleboard. The games at Bellevue's downtown park are organized by the Seattle Pétanque Club. The club also is organizing a doubles tournament that starts at 11 a.m. Sunday (registered teams check in at 10 a.m.) at downtown park, and anyone can come and watch. Teams from around the Puget Sound will participate in the tournament.

Pétanque is popular in France, and many families there have their own pétanque set at home, said Philippe Geraud, a member of the Seattle Pétanque Club. Geraud has been playing since he was a very young boy, and he said that the game can be played by men and women, young and old, and can be played on any convenient patch of grass, gravel or dirt.

Two teams, of two or three people each, alternate pitching a dozen hollow steel balls at a small wooden ball (the jack, or "cochonnet" in French) on a 10-meter-long court. The team with the steel ball ("boule") nearest to the jack scores a point (teams score one point for each boule closer to the jack than the opponent's closest boule). This goes on until one of the teams reaches 13 points.

You might think of it as a cross between lawn bowling and shuffleboard (I rather like to think of the little wooden ball as the Golden Snitch). But no matter how you think of it, it’s a sport that has a lot of followers because of its accessibility and social aspect.

Want to try it out now? The Seattle Pétanque Club will be holding an open doubles tournament Sunday, Aug. 7, and anyone is welcome to register or come down to the park to watch, says John Hunt, a club board member.

The Seattle Pétanque Club has been playing on Sundays at Bellevue Downtown Park for years. Hunt, coincidentally, worked on the park's impact statement when Bellevue was preparing to build it, so naturally, he says, when he was looking for a location on the Eastside for regular games, the park came instantly to mind.

“The surface on the walkways, and the whole park, is almost identical to a French park,” right down to the overhanging shade trees, Hunt says.

And like at a French park, you can see people playing pétanque there on any given Sunday afternoon.

Like many sports that are relatively unknown here, pétanque is very popular internationally, Hunt says. At a recent international competition held in Marseilles, France, there were 13,800 entrants. The sport is widely played in France, Spain, Italy, New Zealand, Australia, and in many other countries.

The Seattle Pétanque Club is a member of both the Federation of Petanque USA and the Fédération Internationale de Pétanque et Jeu Provençal. Club members who choose to pay for a license get access to pétanque clubs all over the country, but the group, and the upcoming doubles tournament, are open to anyone who wishes to play. Hunt says beginners are welcome, and you don’t have to be French to get in on the action.

“Last year we had about 30 teams, and only about three of our members are native French,” Hunt says.

If you go

The tournament begins at 11 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 7, and team check-in is at 10 a.m. The entrance fee of $15 per player includes a croissant sandwich and a drink. To learn more, visit the Seattle Pétanque Club website.