Around The Greens

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32879, 30 March 1972, Page 18

Around The Greens

An entry of 114 teams — the largest for many years—has been received by the Christchurch Bowling Centre] for its Easter fours tournament.

A notable absentee is W. J. Cogswell (St Albans), who with the support of F. A. Hughes. H. Hartley and W. R. Wilkinson, won the event last year, and also in 1967. Wilkinson moved to Beckenham this season and the team has elected not to split up, as it would have to if its members played in Christchurch, and it will contest the Nelson Easter tournament.

Other South Island Easter tournaments, notably Marlborough and North Otago, have also drawn good entries from Canterbury. Cogswell’s team is expected to make a strong challenge at Nelson and J. P. Anderson (Linwood), whose impressive list of achievements this season includes the champion-of-champions fours title, should give the Christchurch centre strong representation at Blenheim.

Anderson’s team for Blenheim is I. E. Smith, R. Muirson and C. Richards. At Oamaru, a strong contender should be S. E. Lawson (Christchurch), whose team will comprise B. S. Johns, A. A. Glendinning and A. J. Rudduck (Meadowbank), who six years ago won the Dominion fours and was runner-up in the singles. T. F. Coup (Kaiapoi). perhaps the foremost of Christchurch’s fours skips and runner-up in the Christmas tournament this season, will also compete at Oamaru. His team comprises A. Inwood, H. O. Hayward and E. Wayland (Rangiora). Such notable absentees will offer greater hope for the teams playing in Christchurch, but even so the field is still strong. The favourite could possibly be G. E. Bennett (Fendalton), who won the Christmas fours this summer and was runner-up to Cogswell in last year’s Easter.

Bennett will be partnered by R. A. Croft, R. Dorman and H. W. Wilson, each of whom was a member of either his last Easter or Christmas teams.

L. Bradbury (Cashmere) has entered the same team with which he won the Christmas fours two years ago and his club-mate, A. F. Roberts, has one change from the rink which he skipped into second place on that occasion. Other prominent skips who have teams capable of bold bids are L. C. Lindley and D. Langley (Christchurch), A. B. Nottingham and H. Berry (Spreydon), M. J. G. Robson and A. Memory (Woolston W.M.C.), T. J. Edmonds and H. P. Butts (St Albans), G. A. G. Connal (Fendalton), D. P. White (Christchurch W.M.C.) and T. W. Dixon (South Brighton). There will be nine sections for the qualifying rounds and the greens to be used are Barrington, Linwood, Papanui, Shirley, St Albans, Woolston W.M.C., Amberley, Tai Tapu and Hornby. The post-section rounds will be at Woolston W.M.C. * * * With only the Easter tournament remaining, the Christchurch centre’s programme has again this summer been most favourably treated by the weather. The start was not promising when the first round of the Saturday morning Three-fours competition had to be cancelled, but since then there has not been one wet week-end. This almost matches last year when there was not one interruption because of rain. But as one administrator said recently: "This can’t go on forever; we’ll probably be made to pay with a really wet summer before long.” Perhaps, the Easter weather may balance the scales somewhat! ♦ * ♦

From being purely a male pursuit, lawn bowls has developed to the point where it now has thousands of women players and it is possible that the men are about to learn from the women.

This summer the New Zealand Women’s Bowling Association introduced a new rule whereby a skip is given the right to place the kitty where she pleases after it is thrown out of bounds by the opposing lead. At a meeting of the Christchurch Bowling Centre last week, a request was made by the Darfield club that consideration be given to Christchurch putting forward to the annual meeting of the New Zealand Bowling Association in July a remit calling for the same rule to be introduced into the men’s branch of the sport Because the delegates •ought time to get the opmions of their clubs, discussion on the proposal was postponed and this means that it will not be dealt with in time to be presented as a remit to this year’s N.Z.B.A. annual meeting. However, the secretary of the centre (Mr M. A. LeCren) said that Darfield had been informed of this possibility and the club was quite prepared to wait until next year. From the brief discussion the topic did arouse, it would appear that the proposal will not go unsupported. • • * Twenty-six teams played in an open tournament at Canterbury last Sunday and nine of them finished with three wins. In the play-offs, p home team of A Bailey, S. Cawtheray, R. Rolton and R. T. Bailey (s) emerged as the winner. •

G. P. Thomas’s Elmwood ■ four of B. Pearce, J. Howi den and L. Smith was second. | The junior singles at Canterbury has been won by K. Matthews, with M. J. Dixon runner-up. and in the final of I the intermediate singles C. Ashworth beat L. Stowell. Dixon, as lead for K. Hore, also finished second in the club’s mid-week competition. The winners were M. P. Hall and W. Watson (s). The Mantail Cup, a club triples event, has gone to the team of H. Stephenson, R. Scott and R. Richards (s). ♦ * ♦ A shield given by the president of the Christchurch Turf Research Association (Mr A. Cook) was at stake in a recent match between Riccarton W.M.C. and Papanui W.M.C. Victory went to Riccarton. A first-year player, C. Ayers, has won the junior singles at Riccarton W.M.C. In the final he narrowly beat A. Briden. * * * There may well be others, but to this column’s knowledge the only bowler to complete the “grand slam” in his club this season was W. A. Clark, of Spreydon. He beat L. Saunders in the final of the singles; took the with R. Cullen; and played three in A. B. Nottingham’s winning four—the other members of which were F. Hoy and Cullen.

The junior cup at Spreydon has gone to P. Sheahan and the intermediate singles to R. Fraser. ♦ ♦ ♦ The Elmbum Shield, a handsome trophy given by the late Mr N. W. Millner, was contested for the first time recently by the Elmwood and Bumside clubs. Bumside gained the honour of being * * * Although he failed to win a centre title, S. E. Lawson had an outstanding season at his Christchurch club. In addition to winning the championship singles and championship fours, he also took the handicap singles, in which he beat W. Graham in ; the final, and, partnered by ■ Graham, the handicap pairs. In the final of the latter event, Lawson was opposed by two members of his champion four, B. S. Johns and A. A. Glendinning. Lawson also reached the final in another club pairs competition. In this he was partnered by A. Filer and they were beaten by H. McIlroy and E. Trenberth. A first-year bowler, W. Streeter, did extremely well to win the junior singles. In the final he beat M. Johnston, the first holder. ♦ * * As most clubs have com-

pleted their programmes, this will be the last “Around the Greens” for this season. There has been criticism—and rarely to the appropriate quarter—that items forwarded for inclusion have been ignored. This is not true, although because of their length some have had to be shortened. Such editing has always been aimed at details, not the principal facts. Clubs, which have provided regular contributions are thanked and it is hoped that these associations will be renewed next summer. Unwanted inoculation A farmer near Berne, Switzerland, who was inoculated against a pig disease by mistake, has been told to rest for two days and to take a course of pills. The farmer, who was holding a piglet so that it could be inoculated against trichinosis, was pierced in the arm by the neddle when the animal tried to escape.—Berne, March 28.