I would like to wish all Bowral Bowling club members and visitors to this site a very Happy Christmas and all the best in the New Year.  May 2019 be a great bowling year for all our members and an excellent vintage for us all.

The Saturday before Christmas the Mens Bowling Club hosted a Super Leaque Competition.  In a nutshell all players paid $12 green fees and $30 into a winners pool.  Three games of 9 ends were played.  Do not have a report on the event but twenty players was a good start to this new event.  The results are posted below.

In previous years (3) the bowlers who had  attended bowls most often and thereby contributed the most green fees were rewarded with a botle of wine for their contribution.  The recorder of these records is Glen Geise and we thank him for his efforts over the years.  These records are also very useful for tracking bowls attendance.  A copy of the top ten is attached below.  Glen has also taken over the Membership Registrars job keeping records of new members and forwarding this information the Bowls NSW.

Happy New Year to you all.

Sunday 16th December saw the Club honoured with a visit by Aaron Teys, World Champion of Champions Winner in 2017 and Australian Indoor Singles Winner in 2018.  Once again turn out was rather poor with most attendees being from the better bowlers in contrast to the previous day.  For those who did attend it was a most enlightening visit.  Aaron being an excellent speaker and happy to share his experiences with those present.  Seeing how quickly he summed up our green and delivered consistent bowls on the jack was an eye opener.  Alex Matheson travelled from Camden with two young ladies from the Camden Youth Bowls Academy who also showed their bowling skills with Aaron.  So thanks to Aaron for sharing his wisdom and to Carl Spilker for organizing the day. 

The Bowral Mens Bowling Club held the annual charity day competition on Saturday on the 15th December.  Proceeds from the day have been donated to the Cancer Council.  The Club hoped for a good turn out for such a worthy cause.  However, the response was disappointing with only 19 male bowlers attending.  The day was saved by all the Lady bowlers from the Ladies Club who joined in the event.  The day started at 10am with a spider (bowlers deliver one bowl from around the rink and nearest the centre wins) which was won by Joel Hunt.  Three rounds were then played for the Charity Trophy.  Three teams had three wins.  The runner up was the team of Keith Edwards, Anne Brenning and Bob Edwards while the winners were Joel Hunt, Peter Watson and Don Coleman.

The winners and runners up won bottles of wine with Joel Hunt also winning a bottle of whisky for his “spider win.

A new trophy was presented by Howard Lewis for the best new bowler.  New bowlers included bowlers who have started over the last three years and consideration was also given to their contribution to Club activities.  Clear winner with a win in the Club Championship Fours and being elected Vice Chairman of the Men’s Bowling Club was Carl Spilker.  Winner of the Henselite bowls bag which had been raffled to raise money was Bob Edwards. Also our thanks for our excellent BBQ cookers, for this event and many others, Billy Dodwell and Bob Kennett.

The Southern Highland Cup (Also Eric  Plain Trophy)  Final was held at Robertson on Saturday 8th December. I have not had a report but do have the final score sheet which I will pass on to you at the end of this post.

In th  Pairs games the results were;

David Coltman and Nathan Boyers won both sets 11-5 and 9-7              Jim Neely and Stephen Della lost both sets 8-9 and 7-9

In the Triples games;

Russell Fahey, Paul Leverett and Josh Woocock won both sets  8-6 and 8-7.   Noel Fraser, Carl Spilkler and Dugald Braithwaite won the first set 16-5 and lost the second 13-7.  They played a three end tie breaker and won this 6-5.   Winning only one of the three ends , but with six shots it was enough to win.

The record show tha Roberston won the trophy for the first time in many years which is a great effort as they do not have the depth of the Bowral Club.  However, the scoring is a bit of a mystery to me and I attach the score sheet which I am sure you will be able to work out.  The sheet shows Robertson scoring 5 sets to 3  while the score cards I was given indicate the opposite.  Both teams appear to have  scored 2 points!!.  I did find a discrepancy in the Boyers match and the score card indicates a Bowral win by 10-3 but this would not change the outcome.  Some of the Bowral members have been playing this inter club event for all 21 years so I am sure they know the scoring system backwards.   Once again well done to Robertson and it was good to see Bundanoon fielding a competitive team.

Next Saturday 15th December is the Bowral Bowling Club Charity day.  Play starts at 10am followed by a sausage sizzle ($2) and then a further two shorts games.  Each player in each team will skip in one of these games.  Proceeds are to a cancer charity so all members are asked to support this day.  The following Saturday is the Club Super League game with prize money to be won by the winning teams.  Notice is on the board.  Finally do not forget that Sunday 16th December Aaron Keys will be present to offer advice and play a demonstration game.

This morning, Thursday 6th December, about twenty Bowral Bowling Club members, both Men’s and Ladie’s Club, were present at the funeral of long time member Bernie Michael.  Chairperson Elaine Jones attended as did Men’s Club Chairman Gordon Lewis who delivered a eulogy on behalf of the Bowling Club.   Bernie was a long time member of the Club and seldom missed playing on a Wednesday and Saturday.  He is sorely missed.

Wednesday 5th December was finals day for the Club Senior Singles with Russell Knight to play Noel Fraser.  Both of these players had had one easier and two tight matches to reach the final.  Russell beating Keith Edwards in the first round by31-25 and Robin Staples 31-30 in the semi final.  Noel’s first round victory was over Peter Morales 31-29 and again in the quarter final he had a very narrow win over Mike Holmewood by the same margin 31-29.

Maybe all of Noel’s practice on the synthetic green paid off for he had a reasonably comfortable win over Russell of 31-16 shots.  Noel started well but after 6 ends the score was level at 5-5 shots.  After 11 wnds level at 10-10 shots. From this point onwards Noel pulled away leading 21-12 at 18 ends and going on to win 31-16.

This is Noel’s fourth win of the Senior Singles in five years, a great effort.  Following his recent win as part of the Club Championship Fours this has been a successful few weeks of bowling.  He has also been selected to represent the Bowral Club against Robertson on the 8th December.  Would seem he is now firmly established in the upper echelon of players.  The team for the Final of the Southern Highland Challenge is shown below.

Saturday 1st December saw a Bowral team travel to Robertson to play the final round of the Southern Highland Cup.  I have not seen results, but believe that Bowral won two matches to one.  This will mean a final between Robertson and Bowral at Robertson on Saturday 8th December.

The Robertson team travelled to Bowral on Sunday 2nd December to play the twenty first year of the Crowe/Brenning Memorial Trophy.  The event pits the Club winners of the Club Singles, Pairs, Triples and Fours against each other.

This year Bowral won the singles 31-8, the Pairs 27-13, the Triples 20-12 and lost the Fours 22-16.  So Bowral retained  the Trophy for another year.