Qualifying rounds involving 800 bowlers and 21 greens in and around Dunedin, including South Otago clubs Milton and Waihola, begin today with men’s singles and women’s pairs. The Taieri club will be used as headquarters for the event, which will also host the business end of the championships in each section, with the finals to be played on Monday, January 8.
"There is an awful lot of work involved in organising this," events manager for Bowls New Zealand Helen Stallard said.
"It’s really been a solid six weeks of work once the entries closed."
Dry weather conditions in the past month have assisted in green preparation at all 21 clubs involved in qualifying and and post-section play.
Mrs Stallard is hoping the weather stays dry, at least for the qualifying rounds.
"Once we get through the qualifying rounds, we get done fairly quickly because it becomes sudden death, knockout.
"Once you lose your game you’re gone. You go from 16 on the green, to eight to four to two, so this can happen fairly quickly.
"If it doesn’t rain on the first five days then it becomes fairly easy for us to manage."
Mrs Stallard said that 15 of the 21 clubs involved would be used today for qualifying in the men’s singles, and the remaining six clubs would accommodate qualifying games in the women’s pairs.
"I want weather like this for the next 10 days, please," Mrs Stallard said, looking out on a sun-soaked Taieri rink.
"At least down here we have the [bowls] stadium. It’s only eight rinks, but we can play until 11 o’clock at night if we need to."
Mrs Stallard said ideally all the greens should be running at 15 to 17 seconds.
Post-section play is scheduled to begin next Wednesday.
Advertisement
