BOWLING TOURNAMENT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21538, 9 January 1932, Page 15

BOWLING TOURNAMENT

DOMINION CHAMPIONSHIPS By Jack. The big tournament begins next Monday at Christchurch, and most of the Dunedin competitors will be on the scene by the end of this week. Some who are not in the Singles will leave on Monday to take part in the Pairs, which start on the Wednesday morning. The contingent from Otago is a strong one, and though it may not win any of the events, it is bound to put up a respectable fight in each. At any rate, it carries the good wishes of all bowlers from this part of New Zealand for its success. Let us hope that some of our men may be able to annex one of the classic events.

The official programme is now in the hands of competitors, and as a slight error has crept in, it may be advisable for players in the Rinks Championship to note that the section play covers four days, with two games of 25 heads each per day. The book shows three games per day for two days and two games for one day, whereas the eight games are spread over four days. The days for play are Friday, Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday, and then follows the post-section play for those rinks which qualify. A review of the Singles indicates that the Cathedral City is hardly up to the Dunedin standard in protecting players from other centres. Down here we protect foreign players from meeting their own city men as much as possible. In the present programme the Dunedin players have not received this consideration. In section A, for instance, if Lowry (St. Kilda) and Gardiner (Dunedin) survive the first game, they will meet in the second, and if Forster, of Cavershani, and Dunn (N.E.V.) also win their first round, they will meet in the second, and the two winners out of these four will meet in the third. So in round four, instead of having a possibility of two of our men fighting with two lives each, we can have only one. An arrangement of our players could have been made whereby they would not have met, at least till round three. And section B, with five Dunedin players, is bad placing; one of the other sections could have been made with four in it instead of three, and thus avoided a repetition of Ryan (Kaikorai) and Smith (Kaituna) possibly meeting in their second game. Section F shows that Hanning (Caversham) and Edwards (Caledonian) may meet in round 2, and in other sections the same possibility is open.

A remarkable fact about the Dominion Singles Championships is that out of the 18 occasions on which it has been played, the honour has come to Otago no fewer than nine times, and at one period for three years in succession—viz., in 1924, 1925, 1926. Another remarkable fact which stands out is that Christchurch has had the Dominion tournament events played there four times, and the Championship Singles has always been won by a player from this province. In 1916 Fountain (Roslyn) won this classic, in 1920 Harraway (Dunedin) annexed the title, in 1924 Carswell (Taieri) added his name to the list of holders, and in 1928 Scott (Caledonian) carried off the honour, so it may be expected that this year at Christchurch some one of our players will see that the sequence is kept unbroken. There is no doubt a good number of our men in the Singles may go far enough for one of them to augment our history of wins. Other winners were: 1918, Foster (Caledonian) ; 1922, Rigby (North-East Valley); 1925, Best (Dunedin); 1926, Foster again; and 1930, Lambeth (Balmacewen). We must have the class of player here to do well, as that list shows. Among the players in the Dominion Singles Championship, and judging by the form they are showing just now, it looks likely that Gardiner (Dunedin), Abbott (Caledonian), Tyrrell (Roslyn), Rigby (Dunedin), Foster (Caledonian), Carswell (Taieri) should form some of the 60 players left in for the second day, while others in Scott (Caledonian), Bentley (Dunedin), Best (Otago), and Tonkin (North-East Valley) are strong possibilities. It is admitted that a lot will depend on the state of the greens and their running surface with these players, and in one or two cases, the first game may probably be the hardest for some. Rigby meets Martin (Sumner) who is expected to go far; Abbott meets M’Whannell (Haitaitai), who is always hard; and Tyrrell has a worthy opponent in Burson (Linwood) so they will require to be on their best behaviour to overcome these in the first flutter. Of the Rinks teams Bremner (Auckland) has a nicely-balanced lot with him, and Adess has one also in the same section. Deare, of course, has a top-notch lot with him, so has Brown (Christchurch), Findlay (Mount Eden), NobleAdams (Blenheim), Walker (Auckland), Hayward (St. Albans), Thomson (Southland), Dr Marks (Christchurch), Hampton (Sumner), Hutchison (Dunedin), Gordon (Wanganui).