Bowls: Gwen Lawson’s wrap of the Northland scene

The One Tree Point women and the Arapohue men won the Centre’s Champion of Champion Triples competitions at the weekend. Photo / NZPA

Congratulations to the One Tree Point women and Arapohue men who were successful in the Champion of Champions Triples played last weekend.

The weather was not conducive to playing bowls outside and the conditions were not handled well by some players. The 2022-23 season continues to be wet weekends and cancellation and transfer of many events for the centre.

Second place in each event went to Onerahi women and Kensington men.

Some tight games were played with only one shot between winning and losing a match.

The winning combinations who are now eligible to represent the centre in the New Zealand Champion of Champions event to be played in Dunedin from July 14-16 are: One Tree Point - Judy MacKenzie (skip) Lynette Springett, Sue Dean; Arapohue - Marty Webb, Neville King, Patrick Lewis.

The Champion of Champions Fours was scheduled to be played on the Sunday but has also been postponed until May 21 at the Ngunguru greens.

Also postponed are the tournaments scheduled for today (Friday - Secondary School pairs) where 30 teams were taking part, and the Regional Mercedes Cup tournament scheduled to be played at Kamo on Saturday. Both days will now require a new date to be scheduled and have been postponed by consensus of the teams and organisers because of the wet weather forecast. Unfortunately our centre has not yet got an undercover green that we can use all year round.

Watch this space for new dates.

Talking about rescheduled tournaments, we have several coming up. We have also now had confirmation of dates and venues for all New Zealand fixtures where we have representatives competing.

This weekend the national Bowls3Five finals will be held under cover in Wellington. Good luck to our Kensington team of Diane Strawbridge, Dave Hopper and John Hooson. This event will be televised through the Bowls New Zealand website from 12 noon to 6pm, today until Sunday.

National events are as follows: Champ of Champs Singles - June 30 to July 2, Bowls Hastings; Pairs - July 7 to 9, Dunedin; Triples - 14-16 July, Dunedin; Fours - July 21 to 23 at Auckland.

Centre fixtures coming up are:

May 13 - Women’s Centre Singles - post section - Kensington

May 14 - Men and Women Junior Singles - post section - Onerahi

May 21 - Champ of Champs Fours - Ngunguru.

June 10 - Men’s Centre Open Singles - Kensington.

May 13 will also see the New Zealand Umpires Board make a presentation of a Distinguished Umpires Award for 39 years of service to Gwen Lawson QSM at the Hikurangi Club.

Winter series of tournaments are now in full swing with tournaments being played almost every day of the week at various clubs.

The Maungakaramea club advise that their AC Triples, scheduled to be played May 6, have been transferred to May 20. They will be pleased to accept entries.