With both greens at the club looking picture perfect, greenkeeper Jim Scott is hopeful the weather gods will play ball to maintain a run speed of about 16sec for the international-class field.
"It won’t be perfect, but it won’t be too bad," Scott said.
The event was created last year from a merger of the women’s invitational pairs and the men’s invitational 10,000, both of which attracted quality fields.
The move to a mixed-pairs format has led to a field consisting of 24 New Zealand stars ready to do battle for a prize pool of $20,000.
Inaugural champions Keanu Darby (Forbury Park) and Tayla Bruce (Burnside) have teamed up again and are the early favourites to lift the title.
Darby, 28, another sporting success story out of Timaru Boys’ High School, has been a force in Dunedin regional competition over recent years with no fewer than eight centre titles, and remains on the national selectors’ radar.
Christchurch bowler Bruce, 29, won her first national title in 2017, playing in the fours with Jo Edwards, Val Smith and Kirsten Edwards, and was the Canterbury sportswoman of the year.
She won the champion of champions world singles title and two Commonwealth Games bronze medals in 2022, and backed that up with the world singles title last year to go with a silver medal in the triples.
While Darby and Bruce are odds-on to head group 4 this weekend, challenges will come from fellow international pair Kerrin Wheeler (North East Valley) and Teri Blackburn (Hamilton), along with promising Taranaki bowlers Keylin Huwyler and Briar Atkinson.
Emerging players Finbar McGuigan (Stokes Valley) and Sarah Scott (North East Valley) head a competitive group 3 also containing Tom Taiaroa (Timaru) and Rebecca Jelfs (Belfast), Queenstown’s Nick Buttar and Olivia Mancer (Wairarapa), and the husband and wife combination of Roger and Bronwyn Stevens.
Sibling rivalry will also be at play in this group as Ethan Kelleher (West Coast) teams up with Ange Francis (North East Valley), while brother Hamish Kelleher joins 2015 Commonwealth Youth Games gold medallist Ashleigh Jeffcoat (Hamilton).
Groups 1 and 2 are also stacked with internationals.
Group 2 is headed by the pairing of national singles champion Sheldon Bagrie-Howley (Gore) and Val Smith (Nelson), while Sean O’Neill (Timaru) and Sandra Keith (Ashburton) head group 1.
Two Wellington pairings, Ray Martin and Kennie Critchlow along with 1994 invitational singles champion Ben King and Helen King, also loom as threats in group 1.
The Central Otago combination of Shaun Scott and Linley O’Callaghan, and the pairing of Craig Merrilees (Invercargill) and Clare Hendra (Wellington), should keep group 2 honest.
Post-section begins on Sunday afternoon, and the final is scheduled for about 1.30pm on Monday.
- By Wayne Parsons
