h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'll be playing Petanque tomorrow at my father in law's birthday celebration.

In the Netherlands it is usually called the more generic 'Jeu de boules' which is just French for 'game with balls'.

Can you take a picture? That sounds like a game that Italian Americans play.

Read this too late, so no pictures. Basically: one small (one inch) cork ball as the target gets thrown on a straight / confined gravel pitch (by the winner of the previous round). There are two teams where all players have two steel balls which they try to get to lie still as close to the target as possible (one at the time, the team which is not closest is taking shots until they get closer or run out of balls. After all balls have been thrown, points are awarded for the closest ball and consecutive balls from the same team. You play till reaching a predetermined number of points.

Apart from just getting your ball as close to the target as possible, you can also try to hit and scatter opponents' balls, or hit the target ball to get it to move to a more favourable location.

There is some overlap with the British 'Bowls' but that has non-spherical 'balls' for added complexity and is played on grass in any direction.

That's the one! They call it bocce ball here.