Elgar (51) heads section four at the Balmacewen Club, with games against Donald Urquhart (Hawera), Lindsay McCaughan (Kaka Point), Richard Kane (Allenton) and Malcolm Wilson (Taieri).
Elgar finished runner-up at the champion of champion world singles in Sydney last month, and claimed a few international scalps along the way, including Scottish Commonwealth Games selection Derek Oliver 2-0.
But a rain storm the night before the final slowed the green considerably.
''I didn't pick it,'' Elgar said of a disappointing result in the final. ''But that's bowls. And I was rapt how well I played.''
If there is a lesson Elgar will take from that result is that the last time he played in the nationals in Dunedin he also fell at the final hurdle, that time in the 2011 pairs final with Philip Skoglund, yielding to the composite combination of Ryan Bester and Chris Le Lievre.
Heading into last year's national championships, Elgar not only had home advantage, but had shown good form leading into competition.
''I think I'm slightly ahead on where I was at this time last year,'' he said.
''But you've still got to put it out there. I'll take it one game at a time.''
In pairs competition, Elgar has teamed up with up-and-coming Scott Roberts (Tower Bowling Club, Hawera) and will contest section 10 when qualifying gets under way on Saturday at the Waihola Green and at Wakari on Sunday.
Roberts (25) appears to have a big future ahead of him, having won the national intercentre title in 2015.
Last year Elgar finished runner-up in the fours with West End clubmates John Garrud, Neil Candy and Gerry O'Sullivan.
Another to watch at Balmacewen tomorrow is two-time single champion Gary Lawson (Eastbourne).
Lawson, who won a third national pairs title last year when partnered up with Neville Rodda, last won the coveted singles title in 1994.
He heads section three, and is favoured to progress through qualifying untroubled.
Lawson meets talented youngster Brady Amer (Johnsonville), in the first round getting under way at 8.30am. His other three games for the day are against Rohan Ware (Canterbury), Ken Hart (Riverside) and Barry Cadogan (Outram).
With qualifying rounds for the men's doubles getting under way on Saturday, Lawson has returned to defend the doubles title, but this year with last year's runner up and two-time doubles and three-time singles champion Ali Forsyth (Clayton).
In other matches, section seven holds plenty of interest with world masters pairs champion Rob Ashton, from the Carlton Cornwall Club in Auckland, against sports broadcasting identity Grant Nisbett, representing the Seatoun Club in Wellington, in the first match of the day at Fairfield.
Nisbett's pairs partner, former TVNZ broadcaster John McBeth (Raumati South), faces a tough second-round game against world champion Shannon McIlroy in section 17 at Outram.
McIlroy who turns 31 during the 11-day tournament, burst on to the scene in 2012 when he won a bronze medal at the world championships in Adelaide, and went on to win the title four years later in Christchurch, where he also won the bronze medal in the pairs with Dunedin's own Mike Kernaghan.
Kernaghan begins section 23 at Wakari, playing his first-round game against Bevan Ravenscroft (Allenton).
Another local favourite Shaun Scott (North East Valley) takes on Raymond Martin (Victoria) in his first-round match in section 14 at Mornington.
