Saturday 29th February was the first round of the 2020 Pennant season.  Bowral Bowling Club is fielding teams in grades 2,6 and 7.  Grade 2 was at home to Wallacia and playing on the grass of the Springett’s green for the first time this season.  Unfortunately, Bowral started the season by losing 62-51.  Early on in the match Bowral was down 18-2, so there was quite a good fight back.  The only Bowral team to win was skipped by Mick Spong with Tom DeGreenlaw, Dennis Beatty and Dugald Braithwaite.  Behind 8-0  after four ends the situation got worse and by 13 ends they were down 4-19.  A great fight back with Mick winning 7 of the next 8 ends with 4 shots on the last end to win 22-21.  Carl Spilker, Nathan Boyers, Paul Leveratt and Josh Woodcock were close only going down by one shot 18-19.  Eighteen all on the last end , a shot to Wallacia gave them a narrow win.  Noel Fraser, Jim Neely, Stephen Della and Mick Armstrong lost by 11-22.

Four new members of Bowral who have come from other clubs did not have clearance yet from Bowls NSW so this resulted in the grade 6 team losing a couple of valuable players.  A wise decision was made to play on the synthetic of the North green as none of our social players have played on grass for three months and a slow green would have favoured our opponents Teralga.   Ashley Lewis team of Keith Edwards, Bob Crowley and Brian Porter were the stand out team with a 27-13 win.  After leading 8-0 Teralga came back to level at 8-8.  However, from there onwards it was all Ashley to give Bowral a fighting chance.  Glen Giese, Jim Starkey, Dave Riddell and Robin Staples were winners by 22-17.  At 14 ends the score was level at 12-12.  Bowral won the next three ends to lead 20-12 and fight off a late challenge.  Kel Limbrick, Graham Hunt, Oscar Wahlin and Dave Coltman went down by 13-27.  Final big board score was Bowral 61 and Teralga 57.  At one stage in the middle of the match Teralga had a 10 shot lead, so a good fight back by Bowral.

The Grade 7 team travelled to Bundanoon.  That lack of play on slow grass greens may have been a factor as Bowral lost all three rinks and lost 37-87  The Mike Holmewood team with Barry Werfel, Peter Morales and Bill Meredith were the best scoring team losing by only 4 shots 18-22.  Rick Reynolds, Viv Gear, Mick Flynn and skip Gordon Lewis  scored 10-30 shots and Richard Denman, Tony Oates, Owen Williams and Bob Edwards were defeated by 9-35.Hopefully back at home, and playing on the synthetic will see an equally big win for Bowral 7’s next week.

Sunday 1st March and two of the Club Championship Singles games were played.  Stephen Della had zone commitments and for some reason the Crowley Spilker match was not played either.  Both of the matches played resulted in comfortable wins.  Bob Edwards excellent run came to an end with Paul Leverett finding great form after an early scare against Brian Porter.  The few ends that I watched were of an excellent standard with very tight heads.  Paul won by 31-8.  Peter Morales played his first match of the championship after a forfeit and was up against Mick Flynn.  Playing very well Peter won by 31-10 to move into the semi final with Paul.