Championship Fours – Day 1

The sun eventually came out but we could still see and feel the snow showers passing over the Tararuas throughout the day.
Bowlers being a hardy lot, held their first day of Championship Bowls on the cotula green.
The Women had only five entries so were playing a Round Robin event which included Byes.
After the first two rounds, Margaret Griffin’s team had two wins, Dianne Short’s, Ann Malone’s and Susan Boxall’s teams had had one win and a bye and Christine Gardner’s team had lost both of their games.
Both Susan and Dianne played their third round game with Susan’s team coming out on top.

Dianne’s footwork shows how close the bowl came

to moving the jack.

Hazel and Margaret measuring for the shot.

A 1 and then a 3 put the win to Fred’s team leaving Brian’s lot wondering what had gone wrong.

Also in this round, Jack Willis was soon on 6 but then Neville Turnbull’s team gained ones on the next four ends, dropped one on the next, but then gained the lead with a five. From that point on, Neville’s team never looked back, winning the game 18-11.

My team was up against Ken Haywards’ and we managed to keep the lead throughout the game though with the score reading 11-10 on the 14th end, things were getting very tight. We managed to hold our lead, winning the game 13-12.
All the team came to the party at various times during the game but my lead, Noel Larsen, played consistently well, giving us a sound base to work with on most ends.

Neville Turnbull and his team went down 14-23 to Joe Wnek whose team performed strongly throughout that match. Brian Cooper played Jack Willis in the 2nd round and was leading 8-7 on the 11th end, but from there on, Jack’s team went on to win the game 14-11.
My team again played well to win against Fred, 22-10 in this round.
This left Jack Willis to play Ken Hayward, and Fred Adams to play Joe Wnek and from both games, another qualifier would eventuate.

Fred indicates to his team mate,

how far from the jack his bowl stopped.

I’ve now heard that Ken won his game and will need to win the morning’s game against Brian Cooper.

Because of the byes, Neville will have to win his fourth round game against Fred Adams, to be played in the morning.

Tomorrow afternoon we hope to see a large number of people taking up the offer to try out bowls. Let’s hope for a fine day and plenty of activity on the green.

The sign from Bowls NZ advertising
HAVE A GO