Rolling up for golden oldies cup
Four-day tournament for bowlers over 60 begins on Tuesday.
BOWLS: The 34th Bowls Palmerston North Golden Oldies Open Fours opens on Tuesday and runs for four days.
This is a tournament that clearly satisfied a demand when it was first played in 1985, with an entry of 90 teams and a waiting list. A minimum age of 60 was established and younger bowlers looked forward to the day when they could make their debut. The entry filled all three greens at the host club, as well as two at the Terrace End club.
A popular feature from the outset was the format of the three-anda-half-day ‘‘golden oldies’’.
Six games are played over the first two days, after which teams are divided on performance into five sections, which then play a further five matches.
There are no play-offs and, after calculation of wins and points differentials, prize money is then paid to the first three placegetters in each of the five sections. This system has not changed since the tournament began.
A feature of the early years of the event was the domination of teams skipped by two nationally recognised bowls legends.
Dave Baldwin, of Paritutu, possibly Taranaki’s best ever bowler, a multiple national title winner and gold medallist at the 1974 Commonwealth Games, skipped the winners in the inaugural 1985 event.
The following year, it was the turn of a local star playing out of the Northern club in Vic Sellars. Sellars had been a highly performed jockey nationally and had represented New Zealand at the Johannesburg World Bowls Championships of 1976.
At the next opportunity, Baldwin returned to reclaim the title with an almost identical side, only for Sellars to then reign supreme for three more seasons from 1988 through to 1990.
Sellars retained the identical line-up of his brother Neil Sellars, Morrie Adler and Ken Wood throughout.
In 1991, Baldwin took over again, winning with most of his original side. Incredibly, no skip other than Sellars or Baldwin had taken the top prize in the first seven years of the Golden Oldies.
Winning sequences were still not finished though. In the next three seasons, Palmerston North stalwart Ray Dunn took out the tournament each time with the same side of Reg Sanson, Ron Eaton and Basil Parkinson.
Baldwin managed one last win three years later in 1997. Featuring in his teams over his four victories were noted Taranaki players Bruce Johns, Chas Candy, Bill Dombroski and Toby Andrews.
No other skip similarly dominated the honours board until the arrival on the scene of Central Levin’s Ian Mahoney, who repeated his 2011 win in the following year and topped the poll again in 2015.
In 2017, a handsome trophy was on offer for the first time. The Keith Mcmurtrie Cup recognises the eponymous life member‘s contribution to Bowls Palmerston North over 46 years.
His profile in the tournament programme recalls his past roles as a leading player and as club president, Manawatu¯ centre president and president of the former New Zealand Bowling Association.
The 2018 event has drawn 70 entries and will use three greens at the host club and two at Bowls Northern.