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Port Alfred Bowling Club
The highlight of our week was our annual Ladies’ Classic on Tuesday and Wednesday.
We had a very successful tournament with ladies entering a team from as far as Dewetsdorp, Port Elizabeth, Cradock, East London, Kenton and Makhanda (Grahamstown).
Our greens have improved over the last year, thanks to David Freeme who besides being the president is also the resident greenkeeper.
David’s hard work and scientific analysis of our greens has certainly paid off.
We appreciate your time and efforts in improving our greens tremendously.
Thanks are due to Personal Trust and Pick n Pay who were our main sponsors.
Without your generous support these competitions could not take place.
Thanks are also due to the catering ladies, Daphane Wilson who did the beautiful flower arrangements, the men on bar duty, Peter Wansell who umpired, and to ladies’ captain Colette Reid and everybody else who assisted.
Congratulations to Rina Maree and her team from Kenton who took first prize.
Second prize went to Elsabe Rodrigues and her mixed team who were Joan Jacobs, Helise Hattingh and Nici van Zyl.
We had three men’s teams playing in the Kenton Classic this weekend which also went off very well.
Congratulations to Hein Stromeck, John Hodges, Stan Weyer and Peter Wansell who came third.
The Colleen Timm and Moore Shield will be played against Kenton on Saturday afternoon at Kenton.
Please check the board to see whether you have been selected to play.
The Men’s Mini Inter Districts will be played this weekend at King William’s Town.
Good luck and good bowling to Trevor Frost and David Freeme who have been selected to play for Eastern Areas from our club.
The ladies’ and men’s drawn pairs start play on Wednesday afternoon.
Duties for the week ending September 24 – 28:
Tab Duty - Dallas Cowie and Rosemary Wood, Pub Duty – Check the notice on the bar.
Kowie Bowling Club
Having traced the evolution of the game of bowls and the shaping of the bowl order to allow it to run around a stationary object, we then came to an impasse when the greens in Australia and New Zealand ran at a speed which forced the players to deliver their bowls on a trajectory which would require the bowl to cross the boundary of the rink (5.6m wide) in order to return to the mid-line at the full length of 32m.
The bias of the bowl was reduced so that the centre of gravity was adjusted inwards by 0.5mm (a Classic 11Type draw).
This enabled the bowler to run his bowl within the confines of his rink.
For a novice bowler the solution was really quite simple – if the greens in your country consistently ran at 17 seconds or more over 32m then you would need a narrow bias bowl (a Classic 11 type) to stay within the confines of the rink.
On the other hand in the RSA where the greens seldom consistently exceed 15 seconds over 32m the standard Classic 1 type of bowl would still suffice and there would be no need to purchase a bowl with a modified bias.
The top coach (Theuns Fraser) appointed by Bowls SA to supervise the coaching of our promising Juniors contends that mastery of the weight is the most important aspect of bowls his charges have to acquire. He insists that they use the old Hensilite De-Luxe (Classic 1 type) bowl which will give them the widest draw and better control of the weight.
It is strange that when narrow bias bowls were first introduced they were not going to import any to the RSA because in terms of our green speed there was no justification for them.
In spite of this many such bowls have been imported with varying success.
Last Tuesday was Penny Farthing day and with a number of our ladies supporting our neighbours at their Ladies’ Classic. The men were left at Kowie to fight over the Penny Farthing Coupons.
There were some big wins with Dick Schuurman, Lennie Clark, and Dave Slater leading the pack – well done.
On Thursday our ladies were still suffering from the rigours of the Port Alfred Classic and stayed at home.
Michael v.d.Sandt .Margaret Stegman, and Rob Turner made off with the spoils. Friday was Personal Trust Trips day and was well attended in spite of the cold biting wind.
With a number of men's teams participating in the Kenton Men's Classic our turnout on Saturday was a bit thin. They played a round robin which was won by John Hubbard Rob Smith, and Peter Haines.
Those that went to Kenton had been so indoctrinated with the concept that they should be nice to their opponents that they even took it with them. Hard luck chaps.
The Club AGM was well attended with a number of new faces in the hall.
Club president Jacques Krige gave a report on the club activities in the past year with special reference to the achievements of our members at Eastern Areas and Eastern Province levels.
It was encouraging to see all the posts being filled.
With Jacques still at the helm, the club can look forward to the new year.
Roll – Tony Brown, Mark – Rob Turner/David Tyrrel, Tabs – Wendy Counihan, Bar – Basil Clarke.
Duties for next week: Kenton Bowling Club
This past week has been great for the Kenton bowling club.
On Tuesday and Wednesday last week the Port Alfred ladies held their annual Ladies’ Classic and our ladies team of Rina Maree, Di Gruneberg, Lydia Palmer and Rose Catto won the tournament.
Last Wednesday we had our monthly Diaz Jackpot day which was won by Bill Bedford and his team.
Last weekend we held the men’s Kenton Classic and although we did not have a full field of entries it was still very successful.
We had teams from as far afield as Cradock, Port Elizabeth and East London.
After two full days of bowls, we got down to the prizegiving where the Walmer 8th Avenue team of Brian Buchanan, Wayne Williams, J van der Berg and P Petts ended up as overall winners.
Second place also went to a Walmer team consisting of Willie Killian, Terry Purcocks, Johan Strombeck and Carl Vermeulen.
Third place went to the Port Alfred team of Hein Strombeck, John Hodges, Stan Wier and Peter Wansell.
Thanks to main sponsor Personal Trust and also to all the other generous sponsors there were cash prizes to the top six teams, and the other 12 teams all received prizes as well. Congratulations must go to the all the hard working staff and volunteers who work tirelessly to make it a success.
Club duties (September 16-22):
Tabs – Pippa Swift, Bar – Rob Croly and Suzie Mann.